Re: flowing around both sides of a float

On Jan 2, 2008, at 1:58 AM, Peter Moulder wrote:

>
> On Tue, Jan 01, 2008 at 04:01:46PM -0800, Brad Kemper wrote:
>
>> I also think we should not proscribe the use of an value based on
>> whether or not we think it is good design.
>
> If the value can hardly ever lead to a better layout

A purely subjective evaluation. Who are you to say if my use of it is  
for a better layout or worse? I can decide that on my own and with  
the input of my bosses, focus groups, etc., thank you very much.

> than what would
> exist without the value, then we should consider leaving out that  
> value
> to make it easier to implement the spec and so that more user agents
> implement more functionality in common with one another.
>
>> Leave it to the designer to decide if the container is too narrow or
>> the floating element too wide, as we do now with other floats.
>
> One issue is that the designer doesn't in general know how wide the
> container or the float is, due to font substitution, user settings on
> font sizes, user style sheets, content not known at design time, etc.

I've managed to deal with those issues well enough for existing types  
of floats. I think I can design responsibly with other values as well.

> It would be nice if designers could say that a box should be floated,
> and let the actual position be influenced by the user agent's  
> knowledge
> of these things.  This is particularly valuable when using columns,  
> and
> want the float to be able to span columns based on the width of the
> float and of the columns and based on how much space is left for text
> (i.e. avoiding bad line breaking or having not enough space for one of
> the words).

I don't want the user agent to design my page for me, or to second  
guess my intentions. I will not use anything that removes the control  
I currently have over the design.

> When writing a web page, I usually don't actually care whether it's
> floated left or right, and in general I don't know whether it will  
> look
> best floated left or right without knowing the font size and window
> width etc.

Maybe you don't, but I do.

>
> pjrm.
>

Received on Wednesday, 2 January 2008 17:24:09 UTC