[css3-page] Is auto a page identifier or not?

One more thought.

In the 'page' property is the value of "auto" to be treated as
identifier or not?  In other words, given the following:

@page auto { /*A set of rules for unnamed pages */}

Will it apply as the comment indicates or will it not apply
to anything since "auto" is not an identifier?

If it is an identifier, might it not be best to change 5.2
so that:

Name: 	page
Value: 	auto | <identifier>
Initial: 	auto

becomes:

Name: 	page
Value: 	<identifier>
Initial: 	auto

?

Personally, I think it would be best if "auto" here was
treated the same as any other identifier.   This is
because CSS2 and the WD  call for a  forced page break
whenever two adjacent elements have different values
of 'page'.

 If it weren't for a forced page break in CSS 2,
it would be worth considering  to allow placing both
of the paragraphs in the following HTML fragment
on the same page..

<div>
<p style="page:landscape">...</p>
<p style="page:auto">...</p>
</div>

Of course, even if a page break wasn't forced between the
two paragraphs by the different values of the 'page' property,
a UA might still decide to choose to break there for any number
of reasons including that it doesn't want to go to the bother of
trying to decide whether the second paragraph could fit
with the first.  However, even if this behavior be desirable,
it would be a departure from CSS2, so I can't see making that
change.  Thus it probably would be best if "auto" was treated
as an ordinary identifier for the 'page' property that just happens
to be the initial value for 'page'.

Ernest Cline
ernestcline@mindspring.com

Received on Monday, 9 February 2004 15:30:29 UTC