Re: [css3-flexbox] anonymous flexbox children

On 02/03/2011 20:23, Alex Mogilevsky wrote:
> There are already precedents with anonymous blocks - in text and in
> tables. They are actually "blocks" in 2.1, which is neither boxes nor
> elements (nor is it defined what's a block, is it?)

'Block' is a well-defined term in the latest WD for CSS21, and it refers 
to boxes.  9.2.1 says

   # The three terms "block-level box," "block container box," and
   # "block box" are sometimes abbreviated as "block" where unambiguous.

Of course, I don't doubt for a moment that "block" is liberally used in 
places where it /is/ ambiguous or describes elements instead of boxes ;-)


> I guess it is fine with me if for the purposes of the spec we mention
> "box tree" if it helps to get clear definitions but it doesn't really
> need to exist in implementation... If analogy with anonymous blocks
> in text is any good, those definitely don’t need to be implemented
> while being fully compliant with spec behavior.

I've always been rather fascinated by this idea.  Can an implementation 
claim to be compliant if it produces the same rendering in all cases as 
if it did implement these "invisible" abstractions, even if it actually 
doesn't implement them?  I think this should be made clear in the spec.

Cheers,
Anton Prowse
http://dev.moonhenge.net

Received on Wednesday, 2 March 2011 21:25:49 UTC