Re: [CSS3] Flexible Flow Module, proposal.

Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
> Is there a particular reason that a bare * needs to be supported?
> Andrew, you keep citing it as a necessity.  It does appear to be a
> very slight convenience, but that's all.
>   
Actually I am not so insisting on bare *.  It just practice that shows 
that in most cases you will need
just '1*'. So ability to use bare *  instead is just a nice to have 
feature for the same reasonings
as why we have shorthand properties if we have full set of atomic ones.
> I wouldn't be crushed if I had to write "margin: 0 1*;" or "margin: 0
> 1fl;" rather than "margin: 0 *;".
>
> (With that said, I understand the mnemonic that using "*" as a unit
> brings - it evokes the feel of the * wildcard in regexps, in that it
> grabs everything that isn't otherwise specified.  However, I also
> remember that the % unit caused some issues in calc(), leading to the
> WG having to adopt "mod" as the modulo function in calc rather than
> the more standard % glyph.)
>   
calc() is using its own micro-format that is already somehow isolated 
from the rest.
E.g. '/' inside it means different thing than outside. In any case 
flexes so far are not
applicable inside the calc() by its definition. But if we will come up 
with the idea how they
can be used there then we always can say that they must be used in their 
canonic
form as '1*'.

In any case flexes greatly reduce the need of the calc(). In almost all 
cases
calc() expression is better to be replaced by flexes. Flexes umm... flex 
better.

calc() probably will be useful if will come up with something like:

   height: calc( 1.2em * this.num-of-children ); 

but this is really another story.

> Giovanni Campagna said:
>   
>> Grid Positioning copied that syntax into "grid-columns"
>> and "grid-rows", ignoring the existance of a "fr" unit.
>>     
>
> IIRC, the "fr" unit didn't exist at that time.  Hakon introduced it
> relatively recently into GCPM for the border-parts proposal.  I
> distinctly recall getting into a naming argument then, as I liked the
> unit "fl" (from flex) better than "fr" (from "fraction").
>
> But seriously guys, this is a tiny, tiny issue about the name of a
> unit.  It's totally not worth the effort.
>   
Yes the name is not that critical indeed. The thing is that flexes are 
not dimensional units
in the sense of  "the length has to be 10mm". Flexes express desire and 
so by their idea are
close to percentage [from free space] so people would expect them to be 
close to percents
by their notation.

> ~TJ
>
>
>   
-- 
Andrew Fedoniouk.

http://terrainformatica.com

Received on Tuesday, 14 April 2009 23:09:08 UTC