[CSS21] 10.6.1, 10.6.3 and 10.6.7 - editorial issues

10.6.7 ('Auto' heights for block formatting context roots) says:[1]

   # In addition, if the element has any floating descendants whose
   # bottom margin edge is below the bottom, then the height is increased
   # to include those edges. Only floats that are children of the element
   # itself or of descendants in the normal flow are taken into account,
   # e.g., floats inside absolutely positioned descendants or other
   # floats are not.

Issue 1:

s/below the bottom/below the bottom of the content area/

Issue 2:

The second sentence is clumsy and misses some important cases.  Floats
that are children of child inline-blocks, tables or inline-tables should
also be excluded.  The sentence needs replacing with

   | Only floats which are participate in this block formatting context
   | taken into account.

and the first sentence of the section modified as follows:

   | In certain cases (see the preceding sections), the height of an
   | element is computed as follows:

s/element/element that establishes a block formatting context/

It's possible, however, that 10.6.7 is being deliberately decoupled from
BFCs, perhaps for use on non-BFCs in future CSS levels.  (Although note
that the title mentions BFCs.)  In this case, the faulty sentence will
simply have to list the exceptions in full.


Issue 3:

10.6.1 (Inline, non-replaced elements), 10.6.3 (Block-level non-replaced
elements in normal flow when 'overflow' computes to 'visible') and
10.6.7 ('Auto' heights for block formatting context roots) claim to
describe element behaviour, but are really describing box behaviour.  If
this doesn't get cleaned up,(*) I think it would instead be worthwhile
to clearly state in 10.6.1 and 10.6.3 that those subsections apply to
anonymous boxes.

(*) Besides the box under consideration, the many mentions of children
and descendants in these sections also refer to boxes, since those terms
leave various gaps (generated content, "loose" content without an
inline-level parent, etc) when taken only in the context of elements.


Cheers,
Anton Prowse
http://dev.moonhenge.net

Received on Sunday, 1 August 2010 18:23:53 UTC