Re: [css3-multicol] overflow and paging?

>
> On 12 Oct 2010, at 01:04, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Okay, yes, this sort of thing has been brought up before, and will
>>>> likely be solved in a manner similar to what you're suggested - a
>>>> "paged" overflow method that flows excess content into another pane
>>>> which is accessible somehow.
>>>
>>>
>>> I did not suggest that.  There is no need to put the overflowed
>>> content
>>> into another pane, because my pane has scrolling (overflow:auto).
>>> I can
>>> see all the content by scrolling, that is not the problem.
>>>
>>> The problem I want solved is much simpler, fundamental, and thus I
>>> expect
>>> more prevalent.
>>>
>>> The problem is the content is in the wrong order.  The columns
>>> should be
>>> formatted as if there is a page size _______WITHIN________ the pane
>>> equal
>>> to the height of the pane.  Please look again at my diagrams above
>>> and see
>>> that I want the order of the content to be correct.
>>
>> No, I understood you correctly this time.  Given the current rules,
>> the content is *not* out of order; it correctly flows down to the
>> bottom of the element, then starts again at the top of the next
>> column.  There are a few ways to fix this - one way is to invoke a
>> "paged" overflow, as I stated in my previous email.  Another is to
>> provide a switch to multicol telling it that if you have more columns
>> than will fit, to overflow them underneath the existing content,
>> rather than to the right.  Is this second one more to your liking?  We
>> discussed this in our most recent face-to-face meeting, but didn't
>> produce anything from it.  I personally support such a mode switch,
>> though.
>>
>> ~TJ
>
> This is something I'd love. It'd make multi-col much more useful in
> non-print settings, and allows you to avoid issues where if columns
> overflow to the right, your navigation, advertising or whatever get
> pushed off the side of the screen. I guess there would need to be
> another property to set the row-gap (or whatever it should be called)
> to specify the gaps between the rows of columns, or could this just be
> done with regular margin-top and margin-bottom (I suppose you could
> want different gap between rows that you will at the very top and very
> bottom of the element. There could be a use for a row-rule as well,
> although I'm not sure how much that would be useful.
>
> I made a quick faked  mock-up a while ago (which is only working in
> Safari as I just cut off the first section element and put the rest
> into a second section element, and the text is flowing different in
> FF, and Opera doesn't have a public build yet) of how I'd like it to
> work visually.)
>
> http://people.opera.com/dstorey/multi-column-suggestion.html
>
> I'm not sure how text overflow should work. If you should get an
> ellipsis at the end of the last column in a row and another at the
> start of the text in the next row to show it continues, or if you
> should be able to generate content to say something like "Article
> continues below"

I must be missing something, because I will quote your link above:

"...On the Web however, this becomes an issue as the column will continue
to the bottom of the page and jump back up to the top for the next column.
This requires a lot of scrolling on the part of the user. Setting a height
on the element partially solves this, but the two browsers that implemenet
Multi-Column layout will make new columns to the right of the existing
columns. Horizontal scrolling is more difficult than vertical scrolling,
and it may push content off the screen, such as the right hand column used
for navigation..."

I am thinking this does not apply to the issue I raised, perhaps you can
explain?

1) I don't want to stop the additional columns from formatting to the
right-- that is the whole point of having columns.  Rather, I just want
the layout order of the inline elements to be in columns that are
_CORRECTLY_ paginated to the height of the scrolling container (see the
alphabetical order in my prior diagrams). I don't want to stop the
formation of columns, rather I just want pagination within scrolling
containers.

2) OFF TOPIC: I don't understand the point of your proposal in any case,
because I don't know any case where the browser will create more columns
than can fit in the width of the container and cause horizontal scrolling.

Received on Tuesday, 12 October 2010 06:27:11 UTC