Re: [css3-multicol] accessibility and UX

> Also sprach Tab Atkins Jr.:
>
>  > As it is, multicol is only production-usable in Paged Media, where the
>  > problems brought up by Daniel and Shelby don't exist.  It *cannot* be
>  > used in continuous media for anything other than experiments until
>  > this problem is fixed in some way.
>
> I find many uses for it. For example, lists in Wikipedia are laid out
> in two-column tables, but using multicol is much more naturel as there
> is no logical reasons for breaking. E.g., this page:
>
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counties_of_Norway#Fylke_in_the_10th_to_13th_century

Maybe because multicol isn't yet supported in all browsers, and is still
buggy in Chrome (I filed a bug report).

It is a legacy issue they will probably eventually remove from their
generation engine once multi-col is ready.

Multicol imparts the correct semantic too ("these are columns and not a
table used for layout reasons").

> Also, CMS systems generally have an idea of how long a certain entry
> is and can select a style sheet accordingly.
>
> You can also set a max-width on the multicol element and the worst
> thing that happens is that you get horizontal scrolling.
>
> However, I agree that multicol works best for paged media. This has
> been known and discussed ever since the <multicol> element was
> introduced:
>
>   http://devedge-temp.mozilla.org/library/manuals/1998/htmlguide/tags15.html#1077197
>
> I last raised the issue on this list here:
>
>   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2008Oct/0148.html
>
> The proposal has similarties with what (I believe) Shelby is proposing.


Yes, but focus on Tab Atkin's modification, which makes it more like what
I am proposing:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2008Oct/0196.html

> The proposal was discussed at some length at the F2F meeting in
> Mandelieu i October 2008:
>
>   http://www.w3.org/2008/10/20-css-irc.html
>
> The conclusion was that we should leave multicol as it is and add
> something like "overflow-mode: paginate" in the future.

What is the justification for allow cases that can forcing scrolling from
bottom to top of document in order to read left-to-right?

Shouldn't the default be to not to do that, then you can work on adding
your other cases in the future?

I can't understand punting on this one.  You are going to have a lot of
angry people out there asking who made this decision?

> I did that here:
>
>   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2009Jan/0030.html
>
> But it has since been removed. I'm happy to put it back on track.
>
> But the WG has decided, after discussions, to not address the issue in
> the CSS3 multicol draft, which is now in CR.

Who decided that?  Where can I read their logic?

Received on Wednesday, 20 October 2010 21:08:07 UTC