Columns? (Was Re: Proposal: font-size: auto)

David Woolley wrote:
> ...   Moreover, it is painful to use because it also implies
> the need to scroll the content continually from side to side, which is 
> even more frustrating than having to scroll two column PDFs vertically
> backwards and forwards.

Off topic, but, I was curious that no-one paid any attention to my thoughts 
on CSS3 columns, not even the view that columns of that variety should be 
restricted to paged media only. I am glad that someone else finds vertical 
text columns on a VDU to be painful.

I don't think that the present column use on the Web is in any way related 
to the CSS3 columns proposal. CSS3 columns is a way to represent typesetting 
columns, which is good for paged media to keep line length down and in doing 
so, provide a neat way to fit multiple articles onto a single side of paper 
(not something the Web should be doing at all with paged media).

Two-dimensional space division, something sorely lacking in CSS up to 3 (Cf 
Advanced Layout Module) is wholly unrelated and I don't want to see it 
connected with columns for line length.

Even when it comes to line length, the idea of using columns on a VDU is 
debatable.

Received on Tuesday, 12 June 2007 17:12:00 UTC