[css3-layout] shorthand for slot construction

Hi all,

The only real criticism I've heard regarding Template Layout, is the
whole ASCII art thing. While the comparison of the syntax with ASCII
art is flimsy at best, I'm assuming that some feel that brevity could
be introduced in some cases.

While:

#example {
    display: "aaaaaaaaaa.b"
             "cccccccccccc" }

can be useful, especially for "drawing" things like GUI components,
would a shorthand be possible?

Is something like:

#example {
    display: "a[10].b"
             "c[12]" }

conceivable, or would it even be useful? Admittedly, this throws the
visual aspect (which I tend to like) out the window, but because it's
just a shorthand, authors are still free to use the longer form.

Any thoughts?

Stephen Hay