boxes borders & bounding binding

This will be my last attempt to get this message to www-style.
Two earlier attempts seemed to go, returned good w3 mailserver queue 
numbers, and just didn't show up on the list.  Am I being gagged?
-- 

Briefly and disjointed... isn't 'inset' a border style, and not really
to be used as a positioner?  Not sure if it was being used like that in
Ernest's example [1] ... just checking.  According to [2], inset and
outset are... like all borders... space-eating coloring schemes.  And an
outset becomes an inset by flipping your monitor upside down.

Line-height gets involved in these discussions too, does it not?  I
lightly perused the css3 wd... and I can't find much info on the subject.

With all this corner-imaging paint-your-own-border stuff, and the
seeming need for line-height to firmly butt-into padding, and padding to
firmly butt-into margin... border is starting to look like an element of
its own.  Its starting to have its own CONTENT.

Long ago in some w3c forum, I used a "graded school paper" as an
example of border-like things... actually being CONTENT.  The teacher
draws arrows, and makes notes in margins, and circles words and
numbers... and returns the paper to the student.  Those "doodles" ARE
CONTENT, and they can be styled.

Now, I am predominently clueless... but this somehow seems like the
correct direction to pursue.  In a way, a border (transparent-center, or
filled) could be powered by an OBJECT tag... and the piles of attributes
included-therein, via param elements.  Arrows, circles, balloon-text,
scribblin' dohickies of all kinds... could be made using this method, or
possibly some kind of ADORNMENT tag added to future html versions.

Then, when you "float" a border out to surround some content, or maybe
'assign' the border element to the content element somehow... then the
author gets to say if the border steals space from the padding, or the
margin, or a little of both. The author sets the exact size when he/she
builds the border element.  AND... this disallows borders from messing
with our precious lineHeight-to-padding-to-margin borders... because the
border is a separate entity.  Thoughts?

Sorry for being spammy and clueless... if I'm being so.
Wingnut

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2003Oct/0291.html
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-css3-border-20021107/borderstyles.png

Received on Tuesday, 25 November 2003 09:01:06 UTC