Re: [css3-writing-modes] horizontal-bt writing mode

On Oct 26, 2010, at 9:04 PM, John Daggett wrote:

> David Hyatt wrote:
> 
>> There is really no reason to leave it out.  Once you've abstracted
>> your engine, horizontal-bt just comes along for free.
> 
> In terms of initial implementation sure, but you still have to have
> someone make tests for those extra values, and run those tests each time
> a test suite is run.  Running a minor test a zillion times means a real
> cost.
> 

Right, although my point is just that the code for this mode will be in the engine regardless.

> Although the current CSS3 Writing Mode spec says nothing about this,
> writing-mode affects UI interactions.  For example, in vertical-rl mode
> IE8 alters the default viewport and how the mouse scroll wheel interacts
> with it, scrolling the wheel "down" scrolls left in the vertical case. 
> Oddly, the page-up/page-down/home/end keys are all "logicalized" but
> up/down/left/right arrow keys are not.
> 
> To see this, view the examples below.  The Flash example mimics the IE
> UI behavior:
> 
> Testcase for IE:
> 
>  http://nadita.com/murakami/tests/wagahaiwanekodearu-vert-1.html
> 
> Nice example layout using Flash:
> 
>  http://macromarionette.com/#/p/25
> 
> So in the horizontal-bt case what happens?  Using the model above the
> viewport would be set to the bottom left/right and
> page-up/page-down/home/end would all be reversed.  That's consistent and
> simple to implement but some poor tester in Beijing is going to have to
> test this each time some test suite is run.  Why waste people's time
> this way?

Again, the code path will be there if you're just using the principal direction of the document to key off of.  It's not like you write a bunch of unique horizontal-bt code.

I'd rather have tests for the mode, since the code will be in the engine anyway.  Also I have already had a situation where a horizontal-bt test caught a bug that I hadn't spotted in the same test in vertical-rl mode.

dave
(hyatt@apple.com)

Received on Wednesday, 27 October 2010 17:08:53 UTC