Re: Shadows vs. layout

On 4 Aug 2009, at 22:34, David Hyatt wrote:

> Yes, there would be a discrete jump at some point when you grew/ 
> shrank, as opposed to a scrollbar just coming in at the smallest  
> possible value.

It's not just the question of whether it comes in cleanly at the  
"smallest possible value". Imagine a page where objects have a shadow  
that grows when the mouse hovers over them. If the window is sized  
such that there are scrollbars, they could shift in a rather  
disconcerting way as the user moves the mouse around and the shadows  
grow and shrink.

>  It could also mess with JS-created scrollbars trying to key off  
> scrollWidth/scrollHeight.  It probably isn't possible to do this  
> well, but I thought I'd suggest it as another possible solution.
>
> On another note, WebKit also supports box-reflect, a CSS property  
> for doing reflections of objects.  I am wondering whether  
> reflections should be considered layout overflow or purely visual  
> overflow.  Unlike shadows they can be quite large.  I'm on the fence  
> about what type of overflow a reflection would be.... anyone have  
> any opinions?

Purely visual. If I'm looking at a page, and see from the scrollbar  
that there's another screenful of content below my current window, I'd  
expect that to be "real" content and not merely a reflection that was  
provided for decorative effect.

(Look at "cover flow" in iTunes. Would users really expect to be able  
to scroll down in order to see the complete reflections of the album  
covers?)

JK

Received on Tuesday, 4 August 2009 21:45:38 UTC