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Re: [css3-flexbox] intuitivity and width computation rules

From: Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2011 09:38:54 -0800
Message-ID: <AANLkTinQLGtKnTF8YN3SgtbZ6wK_Tvz99e42dTrCRDZD@mail.gmail.com>
To: Boris Zbarsky <bzbarsky@mit.edu>
Cc: Rob Crowther <robertc@boogdesign.com>, www-style list <www-style@w3.org>
This is not a productive discussion.  Let's refocus on what the actual
problem is.

It is is not whether we should have additive or absolute flex.  We had
that argument months ago with my proposal, and long before that with
the original draft.  Both are useful.

It is not whether flexbox is good for application UI or not.  It is,
but it's not all powerful.

The only problem that Daniel brought up was "what affect should
width:auto have on the preferred width of a flexbox child in a
horizontal flexbox?".

Right now it sets the preferred width to max-content.  This is bad
when one of the flexbox children has a lot of text in it.  You can
work around this by setting a different width, such as a percentage,
or width:0 to shift the entire thing over to absolute flex.

Another possible answer is that width:auto sets the preferred width to
min-content.  This would look very similar to absolute flex, but still
act slightly better in some situations, such as a horizontal navbar.
This seems to address Daniel's concern.

Are there any other decent answers?

~TJ
Received on Thursday, 13 January 2011 17:39:46 UTC

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