Re: Wrapping paragraphs around blocks

Bert Bos wrote:
> So my advice is to not extend CSS, but use DIV for now and switch to
> XHTML2 later.

As Edward Lass'r reply at 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/2005Mar/0027.html regarding 
this same topic says:

"Of course, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for 2.0 to be implemented 
anytime soon.  It might be fair to compare it to HTML 3.0 [2], which turned 
into the considerably more modest version 3.2 and also foresaw MathML."

Either way, I wouldn't want my HTML to be semantically incorrect for years, 
so rather than keeping text that belongs within paragraph tags, and keeping 
my list, in a DIV, I intend to float a tall line (vertical spacer) to the 
right of the paragraphs, and float my list to the right of the paragraphs, 
under the line. What I don't like about that technique is that the right 
side of the paragraphs get misaligned by the width of the line (one pixel), 
and the spacer adds complexity--it would be unnecessary with the proper 
extension to CSS. Someone on this list demonstrated this technique to me, 
but it was in a personal email that I probably shouldn't quote, especially 
since it contains a link to a page on his website.

I think extending CSS for this kind of wrapping--where part of a paragraph 
is above a block and part is on the side--would be a good idea because it 
could allow you to specify the vertical position of the inset-block, unlike 
the method of placing a list in the middle of the text of a paragraph. 
Placing a list in the middle of the text would be fine if you want the list 
semantically linked to the paragraph, but if you just want the text-wrapping 
for style, such as for wrapping text around an ad, it's best to keep the 
paragraphs together in the markup rather than have them interspersed with 
the semantically unrelated blocks, and allow easy and precise independent 
positioning of the paragraphs and whatever they're wrapped around.

Received on Saturday, 2 April 2005 10:39:49 UTC