Re: Rendering order without positioning

Orion Adrian <oadrian@hotmail.com> wrote:

> there's a simple solution to my problems

What you have proposed - and similar ideas for enhancements to CSS 
Positioning mentioned on this mailing list for a long time, including my 
own pet grid positioning idea - are *not* simple solutions.

They would require heavy rewriting of UAs' existing layout code, with 
high potential fall-out for pages authored to current standards. Without 
string vendor support for some particular approach this just isn't going 
to happen. It has taken years to get browsers to a position where CSS 2 
mostly works most of the time; even if we all agreed on a good solution 
now it would take many, many years before some notional 'CSS 4 
Positioning' would actually be usable.

Absolute positioning is indeed not ideal for all kinds of layouts 
authors want to come up with, but when layout really is important there 
are workarounds that experienced authors know and understand and that 
will probably do for now. Any proposed replacement must be not just 
better than absolute positioning, but an order of magnitude better, 
before anyone can even consider it.

That's my analysis, anyway. I do not speak for W3C.

-- 
Andrew Clover
mailto:and@doxdesk.com
http://www.doxdesk.com/

Received on Tuesday, 25 May 2004 04:40:14 UTC