Re: [CSS3] Box Model Terminology

Andrei Polushin wrote:
> 
>  > Directions
>  > ----------
>  >
>  >   n/a (refer to 'direction' property)                 inline direction
>  >   n/a (refer to 'direction' property)                 block direction
> 
> Not so good: while it became a writing-mode-independent, it's still a 
> layout-algorithm-dependent: now it is defined in terms of flow layout.
> 
> It might be better to use "logical width/height direction", or simply 
> "width/height direction", because the direction of physical width/height 
> always remains constant.

These two terms are *about* how the flow layout works, and they're vectors
not sizes.

> 
>  > Sides (from LTR reference)
>  > --------------------------
>  >
>  >   top                                                 before
>  >   left                                                start
>  >   right                                               end
>  >   bottom                                              after
> 
> Did you consider "logical-top" etc. instead of "before" etc.?
> 
> Those before/after/start/end is really inconvenient for authors, and 
> probably for Japanese authors too. I would suggest reusing the terms 
> from both worlds instead of introducing unusual terminology:
> 
>    top          logical-top         japanese-left
>    left         logical-left        japanese-bottom
>    right        logical-right       japanese-top
>    bottom       logical-bottom      japanese-right

That would make left == right in RTL languages, something we want to avoid.
Also, the 'start/end' terms are already being used; we can't change those.

> In this case, logical-top and japanese-left are full synonyms and can be 
> used interchangeably throughout the specifications.

Absolutely not. First of all, the direction mapping used for Japanese is
also used in traditional Chinese, secondly it's not the only direction
mapping in vertical text: a left-right flip of the Japanese diagram will
give you layouts typically used in Mongolian, and a left-right flip of
the English diagram will give you layouts typically used in Arabic.

~fantasai

Received on Wednesday, 27 February 2008 18:57:05 UTC