- From: David Hyatt <hyatt@apple.com>
- Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:35:32 -0500
- To: Håkon Wium Lie <howcome@opera.com>
- Cc: "www-style@w3.org List" <www-style@w3.org>, Robert O'Callahan <robert@ocallahan.org>
Let's say you had way more text in your example, such that you had 3 tiny columns and 24 more columns in the current implementations (all spilling out horizontally). Are you proposing that those 24 extra columns would be stacked vertically in 8 overflowing rows of 3? I think this would be ideal, since I could hit "page down" scrolling and read each "column page." dave (hyatt@apple.com) On Oct 16, 2008, at 2:28 PM, David Hyatt wrote: > > I like the idea. I think it's a much better solution than spilling > out horizontally. Make sure to account for block direction and > inline-progression-direction when specifying where the extra columns > get placed. > > dave > (hyatt@apple.com) > > On Oct 16, 2008, at 2:21 PM, Håkon Wium Lie wrote: > >> CSS3-multicol describes how to lay out content into multiple columns >> [1]. The benefit on multicol layouts in paged media is clear. >> Continuous presentations -- in browsers with scrollbars -- provide >> some challenges. For example, when columns are longer that the >> viewport, users will find themselves scrolling up and down repeatedly >> to read the content. One way to address this problem is to set the >> 'max-height' (for horizontal writing systems) of an element so that >> it >> will fit most people's viewport. >> >> However, adding constraints on the height will lead to content >> overflow. The spec doesn't say exactly what should happen in these >> cases, but the examples suggest that more columns should be added on >> the side. This is also what the two current browser implementations >> (Mozilla and WebKit) do. >> >> This behavior leads to horizontal scrolling, which is arguably worse >> than repeated vertical scrolling. Jacob Nielsen, at least, argues >> that >> horizontal scrolling should be avoided [2]. >> >> One alternative method that has been suggested (most recently by >> David >> Storey) is to place the overflow content underneath the first set. >> One >> can think of this as cloning the original multicol element as many >> times as necessary and stacking them on top of each other. >> Margin/padding/border set on the original multicol elements will also >> be honored for the cloned elements. >> >> So, for a three-column layout with overflow and constrained height >> you >> would get: >> >> This is some to test multi- This sentence >> sample text column layout. continues in >> >> the next col- >> umn. >> >> instead of >> >> This is some to test multi- This sentence the next col- >> sample text column layout. continues in umn. >> >> (monospaced text is assumed in this example) >> >> Personally, I think this is more friendly to users. Pioneer >> implementors will have to change their code to make this work. AFAIK, >> support for multi-column layout hasn't been turned on official yet >> one >> still has to use prefixed property names to enable it. So, there's >> still time to fix it if we agree that it's a better solution. >> >> What do people think? >> >> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-multicol/#overflow >> [2] http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20050711.html >> >> -h&kon >> Håkon Wium Lie CTO °þe®ª >> howcome@opera.com http://people.opera.com/howcome > >
Received on Thursday, 16 October 2008 19:36:14 UTC