Re: Text selector [was Re: breaking overflow]

On Jan 4, 2010, at 11:28 AM, Boris Zbarsky <bzbarsky@MIT.EDU> wrote:

> On 1/4/10 11:52 AM, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
>> If we *don't* allow it to match across element boundaries, then is
>> there a good reason for the restrictions?
>
> You can't disallow it matching across pseudo-element boundaries  
> (specifically first-line and first-letter), or at least I suspect  
> you don't really want to.

Let's say you have some text that cruises the boundary of a first-line  
pseudo-element. Why should the ::text pseudo-element be more  
restricted than an actual element, such as a SPAN or a B?


> From a theoretical purity of specification, there might not be a  
> good reason other than the above.  However, from a difficulty of  
> implementation perspective, I suspect allowing arbitrary styling  
> on ::text would be much more difficult to implement (it certainly  
> would be in Gecko).

I don't know why, given that you can do arbitrary styling on other  
elements that cross the boundaries of first-line.

> Hence my question about what the use cases are and whether they're  
> important enough to make the feature more complicated and possibly  
> slower to get implemented.

The restriction on not crossing element boundaries was intended to  
make it less complicated and easier to implement.