Re: roadmap for new CSS specs: template, grid, regions and floats

  As of #2 – non-rectangular shapes. 
  I think we should have more generic mechanism of defining such things. 
  E.g. I have multiple requests to provide mechanism in CSS that will allow to 
  define shapes like tabs here:
  http://harmonia.terrainformatica.com/lib/exe/detail.php?id=start&media=harmonia.png
Does CSS really need to solve every UI problem ?

To me, it seems that an SVG is the best way to solve those kind
of problems. It already has well-defined tools like PATH that
can solve those problems efficiently.

If CSS really needs complex shapes, it should probably make use 
of the existing SVG standards. Or is there any reason to not follow
the SVG exemple ?

Regards,
François


From: Alex Mogilevsky 
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2011 9:36 PM
To: w3c-css-wg ; www-style@w3.org 
Subject: roadmap for new CSS specs: template, grid, regions and floats

At the F2F we have discussed new proposals for Grid Layout and for CSS Regions. They logically led to questions on how they relate to existing specs and how to proceed further. Follow-up discussions seemed to get to spec landscape that I will try to describe here.

 

I am making no assumptions here on who should edit what specs, just trying to figure out what is the right set of documents.

 

 

Specs discussed (in order of introduction)

 

* CSS Template Layout -- http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-layout/ 

Defines a  grid (specified with ASCII art) with named slots for flow content (possible irregular shaped and/or disjoint). Grid can auto-size to cell content.

 

* CSS Grid Positioning Level 3 -- http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-grid/ 

Defines how positioned elements (absolute or page floats) can address grid lines. Also introduces syntax for specifying a fixed grid.

 

* CSS Grid Alignment Level 3 -- http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-grid-align/ 

Defines a grid that positions its children in rows and columns which can be addressed by row/column number, named lines or named cells.

Grid can auto-size to cell content.

 

* CSS Regions -- http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2011Mar/att-0011/CSS_Regions.pdf 

Defines named threads that flow content through a set of containers.  Containers can have irregular shapes and exclusions.

 

 

Also relevant in this context

 

* CSS Generated Content for Paged Media -- http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-gcpm/ 

Includes definition of Page Floats  that can be positioned anywhere (including backwards in flow) and possibly use grid positioning.

 

 

Spec transitions

 

My understanding of what we want to happen is as follows:

 

1. (new) CSS Grid Layout Level 1 

-          publishing CSS Grid Alignment Level 3 as first working draft

-          include grid-related features from Template Layout

 

2. (new) CSS Regions Level 1

-          merge Adobe’s region proposal with template slots of Template Layout and with named flows of GCPM

-          “regions” name is tentative, it may change when we have a deeper discussion

 

3. (new) CSS Floats Level 3

-          Extract Page Floats from GCPM and extend with capability of tight wrap and control of exclusions

-          Include the use of grid positioning

 

4. Archive Template Layout -- http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-layout/ 

-          If there is content in current version that doesn’t naturally merge with either grid or regions, it may need a separate new spec, but I am not sure if there is any.

*OR*  keep the “Template Layout” name and combine with Regions. 

-          It depends on naming preference, otherwise the combined document should be same – defining how content can be flown into one or more containers.

 

5. (maybe) Archive Grid Positioning

-          Considering that its most prominent use is Page Floats, it may not have too much left when floats are fully defined.

-          It may still be preferable to keep as a separate spec (as it applies to absolute positioning too and doesn’t need to have a float dependency). 

 

Is this what we want to do? Thoughts?

 

Alex