RE: Fw: RE: [css-flexbox] Summary of planned changes to Flexbox Module

Are you working on a new draft so what we can see proposed changes in a complete document?

> From: Tab Atkins Jr. [mailto:jackalmage@gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 9:24 AM
> 
> I would like an easier way to trigger additive flex than using calc(), though.
> That feels somewhat cumbersome, though I value the simplicity of the
> model as a whole more than simplifying this case.

The current model allows easy switch from additive to absolute - by using "width:0". If it doesn't produce absolute flex in all implementations, it should. The spec is pretty clear about it I think.

> 'start'    : margin-bottom: 1fl;
> 'end'      : margin-top: 1fl;
> 'center'   : margin-top: 1fl; margin-bottom: 1fl;
> 'stretch'  : height: 1fl;
> 'baseline' : (no mapping, use vertical-align instead)

All of the above will work exactly same with 'auto'. I understand there can be some cool use of 'flex' unit, and it is more or less clear how to add it to box model (where it would then belong). I don't think box model is broken enough to fix it this way though...

> Box-align misses some cases, too.  For example, one can't make the box
> stretch and then align the contents to the bottom of the box.  With this
> model, though, that's a simple application of padding-top:1fl.

Actually, if padding:auto worked, it would work here and in many other case, and finally it would allow vertical alignment without "dispay:table-cell" (which btw would make you this case work)

> Similarly, box-pack maps to simple and intuitive applications of flex units.  The
> one exception is box-pack:justify, which is somewhat
> complex:
> 
> flexbox > * { margin-left: 1fl; margin-right: 1fl; margin-break: discard; }
> flexbox > :first-child { margin-left: 0; } flexbox > :last-child { margin-right: 0; }

Can we please keep box-pack? A lot can be done with a minimal set of powerful tools, but this is a language, it doesn't need to be minimal, it needs to be understandable. Lack of <center> equivalent in CSS is hard enough for people to understand, IMO we shouldn't go beyond that with margin magic.

> box-orientation: vertical     ->  box-begin: top
> box-orientation: horizontal   ->  box-begin: left
> box-orientation: inline-axis  ->  box-begin: start
> box-orientation: block-axis   ->  box-begin: before

You also could have adopted writing-mode abreviations (like 'lr-tb'). That can be extended to include 'se-ba' (start-end/before-after). It still sounds more scientific than intuitive (although admittedly cool).
 
--Alex

Received on Tuesday, 11 May 2010 17:33:25 UTC