RE: [css3-text-layout] New editor's draft - margin-before/after/start/end etc.

I double checked margin-before/after/start/end in the current draft. As I understand, they're properties to change margins based on the original document stream just like XSL, and that's why it's called "logical". That makes perfect sense, and I support that efforts.

This property, on the other hand, is a way to transform margins and paddings based on the current layout. It has no relationship with the original document stream. Practically, layout and document stream could be the same in some cases, but we want the two be as independent as possible and that is where logical properties can play its role.

Some issues could be resolved by either, and both are to improve margins for Asians. But other than that, this proposal can solve different issues than the logical properties can solve, and vice versa. I think the two features can complement each other.

As written below, both of them will not be rendered correctly on old browsers, but they do keep the document readable, and neither breaks existing documents, so I don't think the compatibility issue of this proposal is bigger than other properties.

Please let me know if you think I'm missing something.


Regards,
Koji Ishii

-----Original Message-----
From: www-style-request@w3.org [mailto:www-style-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Ishii Koji
Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2010 3:27 PM
To: MURATA Makoto
Cc: www-style@w3.org
Subject: RE: [css3-text-layout] New editor's draft - margin-before/after/start/end etc.

Thank you for your prompt reply and giving deep thoughts to my proposal.

I still don't understand why you call it "logical". It looks different thing to me if I understand the logical properties correctly. This is closer to what Transform does as I wrote, I think. But it doesn't matter how you call it, does it.

Regarding the compatibilities. New properties always face the compatibility problem, and I understand it's a very important issue.

As far as I understand, by adding this property:

* Existing document will not be corrupt or rendered differently, as the default behavior is unchanged.

* Documents with this property set to "line" will be rendered differently from author's intention on old browsers. You're right about this. But I understand this is the nature of the new features. CSS2 documents viewed by IE3/NS4 wouldn't be rendered as author intended, but that was okay because the document is still readable, and renders better on new browsers. All properties we're talking about for CSS3 text layout have the same nature, right. You can't expect IE3/NS4 to render them correctly. You can read contents, but layouts wouldn't be correct. I think this proposal achieves the same level of the compatibility as these new features.

Am I missing something?


Regards,
Koji Ishii

-----Original Message-----
From: eb2mmrt@gmail.com [mailto:eb2mmrt@gmail.com] On Behalf Of MURATA Makoto
Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2010 2:40 PM
To: Ishii Koji
Cc: www-style@w3.org
Subject: Re: [css3-text-layout] New editor's draft - margin-before/after/start/end etc.

I now understand your proposal.  You are proposing to make existing properties logical only when a new property 'margins-against'
with the value "line" is specified.

Probably the biggest problem in your approach is existing implementations, which are unaware of this new attribute.  They behave completely differently from new implementations that are aware of this new attribute.  I am afraid that this problem is fatal.



Cheers,
Makoto

Received on Thursday, 17 June 2010 07:04:41 UTC