Floats, Multicolumns and Paged Media

Does anyone know how far away the next draft of the
CSS paged-media module is? I ask because I'm
interested in section 4 (Footnotes and Endnotes) but
the section is currently empty [1]. There is a bald
observation about it in "The Box Model" [2]. The
section on floats is also still only a declaration of
intent [3].

I'm also interested to know if those ideas, of
floating notes into margins (left, bottom or right),
could be implemented in screen media under CSS3.

In a recent posting on css-discuss@westciv.com, I
unsuccessfully sought some way of floating a note
outside of its containing text block in CSS2, and
refilling the hole left behind in the text. There was
a suggestion that Mozilla may fill the hole if the
note is shifted sideways with position:relative but I
was doubtful whether this behaviour is fully compliant
with CSS2. There is a discussion of notes on the
macro-typography guide at
http://www.piggin.net/footnote4.htm

What is needed is a way of pushing a note into the
margin (left, right or bottom) of a screen DIV, but
contiguous to the text. As the Box Model stands [4] it
should *not* be possible to float outside the
containing box (principle of horizontal containment).
However I would propose that this principle be relaxed
and new float properties of "outside-right",
"outside-left" and "outside-below" be introduced. 

Jean-Baptiste Piggin

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-page 
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-box/ quote: "Should also
have float to top/bottom of page. In paged media
module?" 
[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-page#id00176055284
however the diagram at
http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-page#id00601450464 clearly
foresees floats into left and right margins as well. 
[4]
http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-css3-box-0010726/#the-float



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Macro-Typography Style Guide at http://www.piggin.net


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Macro-Typography Style Guide at http://www.piggin.net

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Received on Wednesday, 5 June 2002 09:33:21 UTC