Re: [css3-text] Hanging Indent Again

2003-09-01T17:40:49Z Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> wrote:

> On Mon, 1 Sep 2003, Alexander Savenkov wrote:
>>
>> Hello everyone,
>>
>> Instead of
>>    text-indent: 3em hanging;
>>
>> leave
>>    text-indent: 3em;
>>
>> while introduce
>>    text-indent-type: hanging | someothertype | someothervalue
>>
>> along with a shorthand property
>>    indent: 3em hanging;
>>    indent: [ text-indent || text-indent-type ] | inherit
>>
>> This seems to have much more sense as it'd be easier to add new indent
>> types (and there are many as I already have said on this list).

> The current proposal is compatible with the above should we ever decide to
> add more types in future.

I can't see how it is compatible. According to the current proposal the
addition of new values is quite painful, i.e. any new value would make
the whole block invalid resulting in no indent at all. Just like it
happens with the 'font' shorthand:
   * { font: bold small-caps 12pt/11pt serif; }

Let's say you introduced 'font-variant: foo-caps' You can't set it to
   * { font: bold foo-caps 12pt/11pt serif; }

without loosing everything from 'bold' to 'serif'. Fortunately, we
have an elegant solution here: to separately set the new value on
the 'font-variant':
   * { font: bold small-caps 12pt/11pt serif; font-variant: foo-caps; }

That's the idea. How do I make it with the 'text-indent'?
   * { text-indent: 3em hanging; text-indent: 3em; } ?

Ugly! It can only worsen with the new values. Hence a separate
property.

I propose extensibility and see no reason why you should rise
against it.

Alex.
-- 
  Alexander "Croll" Savenkov                  http://www.thecroll.com/
  w3@hotbox.ru                                     http://croll.da.ru/

Received on Tuesday, 2 September 2003 16:52:41 UTC