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

Also sprach Robert O'Callahan:

 > > 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 :-(.

It's a term that we have a habit of using in CSS. I think you
understand what is meant. Do you have suggestions for how to reword
it? This would be an editorial comment, so it should be possible to add.

 > (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. 

I don't see how regions obsoletes the distinction between paged and
continous media?

 > 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.

The last call would have been the time to raise this. The spec is now
in CR, so non-editorial changes are expensive.

  http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-multicol/last-call.html

-h&kon
              Håkon Wium Lie                          CTO °þe®ª
howcome@opera.com                  http://people.opera.com/howcome

Received on Monday, 31 October 2011 05:14:09 UTC