[css3-writing-modes] vertical writing mode and visual formatting

Hello all,

I see a big problem with how MS implements vertical writing mode. This 
causes a dilemma with visual formatting and I don't know how this can 
reconcile with the current spec, CSS 3 layout and CSS2.1.


Problem 1 - Overflow:


Test 1 has vertical writing-mode on body.

<http://css-class.com/test/css/bidi/kanji-test1.htm>

IE8 and IE9 beta render the same. Is this what authors really want? A 
very long page would overflow endlessly towards the left.


Test 2 has vertical writing-mode on div.

<http://css-class.com/test/css/bidi/kanji-test2.htm>

IE8 overflows to the right and below. Long pages must be scrolled 
towards the right to get to the beginning of the document. Adjusting 
the bottom and right or the viewport causes paragraphs lengths to 
increase or decrease. Sometimes the bottom scrollbar disappear with 
content overflowing into hidden on both left and right sides. IE9 beta 
handles this strange. Adjusting the sides (best seen of right edge) of 
the viewport causes the paragraph to increase or decrease but this 
causes lot of empty space below.


Test 3 has vertical writing-mode on div with horizontal text first.

http://css-class.com/test/css/bidi/kanji-test3.htm

IE8 overflows to the right and below. Long pages must be scrolled 
towards the right to get to the beginning of the document. Vertical 
text section is moved towards so from the very first paragraph, one 
must scroll vertically downwards. The amount of the overflow below 
seems to be the same height as the horizontal text blocks. The 
paragraph don't seem to increase or decrease in length. IE9 doesn't 
supply a scrollbar at the bottom towards the scroll right.


I do believe the best solution is to overflow downwards like this with 
vertical blocks.

5  4  3  2  1
x  x  x  x  x
x  x  x  x  x
x  x  x  x  x
x  x  x  x  x
x  x  x  x  x

10 9  8  7  6
x  x  x  x  x
x  x  x  x  x
x  x  x  x  x
x  x  x  x  x
x  x  x  x  x


Problem 2 is with floats (overflow and overlapping problems) and 
problem 3 is with block formatting context or lack of block 
progression context. This I will mention later. I need sleep.


-- 
Alan http://css-class.com/

Armies Cannot Stop An Idea Whose Time Has Come. - Victor Hugo

Received on Monday, 25 October 2010 14:57:17 UTC