[cssom-view] Why is body's offsetParent null ?

• From: Sylvain Galineau <sylvaing@microsoft.com>
• Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:59:01 -0700
• To: "www-style@w3.org" <www-style@w3.org>
• Message-ID: <BE26041DBCC7014FA41031200B9AD9C7529A205EA5@NA-EXMSG-C104.redmond.corp.microsoft>

The current spec and user agents I have tested - IE7, FF3b5, Safari 3.1, Opera 9.5b1 -  set body's offsetParent property to null even though a) body has offset properties for which b) there is a reference element - html - with box properties of its own.

My question is : what are the reasons for this beyond compatibility with IE legacy ?

Notes:
- In standards mode, IE8 Beta 1 currently sets body's offsetParent to html; html's offsetParent is null.
- IE quirks mode may return html as the offsetParent of a child element of body.

Thanks,
Sylvain

Received on Wednesday, 23 April 2008 01:37:35 UTC