[CSS21] block formatting context/floats

Hi,
The new descriptions in the lastest WD on those things helped me a 
lot, good work.

http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-CSS21-20030915/visuren.html#q15
The new first paragraph in block formatting context is good and makes 
me think i understand the questions i had on floats earlier. However, 
i think an example or two would be helpful to more clearly show for 
instance how an element that generates a new block formatting context 
affects its containing blocks size when the containing block also 
generates a new block formatting context (is this described somewhere 
else? I failed to find it if so). I also think some kind of more 
explicit pointer to this effect should be supplied in the calculating 
widths/heights sections (or is the effect seen more as an implicit 
min-width/min-height?). 

Something i dont understand is why non-initial overflow needs to 
generate a new block formatting context?

http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-CSS21-20030915/visuren.html#floats
The new paragraph on how the margin box of a block that generates a 
new block formatting context interacts with floats in the same block 
context is helpful, but i think perhaps the effect of a float nested 
inside an element wich generates a new block formatting context along 
with more examples would help even further (eg a float in a table 
cell). The way things in the draft are currently written the example 
under the paragraph probably belongs to the previous paragraph, which 
could be a bit confusing.

The paragraph is a little vague on how to handle the conflict between 
a float and another block that generates a new block formatting 
context when they are in the same block formatting context. Why not 
require that the box is cleared? When is it desirable to position it 
adjacent, creating a kind of a "pseudo-float"?

As an editorial comment i noticed that the phrase "block formatting 
context" was only occationally linked to its defintion, in case this 
is not intentional.

 /Staffan

Received on Wednesday, 17 September 2003 05:59:44 UTC