Re: [css3-multicol] Clarification on column-fill

On Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Scott Johnson <sjohnson@mozilla.com> wrote:

> The explanation you give seems reasonable, but what happens if the
> continuous media isn't bounded, and column-fill: auto is set? I know that
> the spec states that it only applies to situations where the continuous
> media has a maximum height, but in cases where it's allowed to be
> unbounded, should the property just be ignored? In other words, for
> unbounded continuous media, should columns always be balanced?
>

The spec says "In continuous media, this property will only be consulted if
the length of columns has been constrained. Otherwise, columns will
automatically be balanced." Unfortunately "constrained" is completely
undefined :-(. (Your use of the word "unbounded" is undefined too :-).) The
phrase "continuous media" is also obsolete now that we can have columns
flowing into arbitrary regions. It also seems odd to have the fact that a
page-break might exist far away from an element with columns affect the
layout of those columns.

I think it would be simpler to remove that paragraph and just make the
property always apply. This means when the element's height is auto and
max-height is none, and there's no pagination or region stuff happening,
column-fill:auto will put all the content in the first column, but that's
OK IMHO; 'auto' is not the default value, and authors should only use it
where it makes sense.

Rob
-- 
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