[css3-flexbox] spec nits

Hi Tab & Alex,

Here are a number of minor spec issues that I ran across in a
read-through of the current flexbox ED.

> Section 2. The Flexbox Box Model
> In the cross axis, flexbox items can either "flex" to fill the available
> space or be aligned within the space with the ‘flex-align’ property.

It's confusing that we use the term "flex" to refer to cross-axis sizing
here, since we otherwise only use that term for *main*-axis sizing.

Could we replace "flex" with "stretch" in this sentence? (since that's
the flex-align value that gives the behavior being described, anyway)

> Section 3. New values for ‘display’ property
> ...this specification will refer to the former kind of flexbox as a
> block flexbox and the latter type as an inline flexbox.

Despite what this quoted statement promises, the spec never actually
uses those terms ("block flexbox" or "inline flexbox") at all, outside
of this sentence. Maybe this sentence can just be dropped?

> ... each of the flexbox items establish a new formatting context for
> its contents.

Nit: s/establish/establishes/
('each' is singular -- e.g. "each person establishes", not "each person
establish".)

> 4.1. Absolutely Positioned Flexbox Children
> Note: In most cases, this means that absolutely positioned items will
> have no effect[...] The only exception is when the flexbox has
> ‘flex-pack:justify’

That's no longer "the only exception".  This should mention "flex-pack:
distribute" as well.

> 6. Ordering and Orientation
> This functionality is exposed through the ‘flex-flow’ and ‘flex-order’
> properties.

Perhaps this should refer to 'flex-direction' and 'flex-wrap', instead
of their shorthand version 'flex-flow'...?  It seems odd to mention a
shorthand as the way in which a particular behavior "is exposed".  Maybe
that's just me, though.

> 6.1. Flexbox Flow Direction: the ‘flex-direction’ property
> * row: The flexbox's main axis has the same orientation as the inline
> axis of the current writing mode (the direction that text is laid out in)

Perhaps "writing mode" here (and in the rest of this section) should be
linkified to the CSS3-writing-modes spec? (perhaps to the writing-mode
property itself[1] in that spec?)

> 8.3. Resolving 'auto' margins
> *  Immediately before pack and align steps...

Nit: there's a stray ' ' in the source here, making this
bullet-point's text indented further than its neighbors.

> 9. Flexbox Layout Algorithm, chunk on resolving 'auto' margins:
>   1. If leftover free-space is positive...
>   2. If leftover free-space is negative...

Nit: this doesn't say what to do with these margins if leftover
free-space is 0. (neither positive nor negative)  I think (2) there
should just say "Otherwise, ..." in place of "If leftover free-space is
negative".

> If a flexbox item has ‘flex-item-align:stretch'' and its [...]

The quotes here are broken (‘ vs ''), and there's also a <code
class="css"> tag that gets closed way too late, resulting in nearly this
entire paragraph being colored blue.

> Property index

The entries under the "Percentages" heading in this table seem to
actually be describing "Computed Value" -- they don't appear to have
anything to do with percentages.

(I'm not sure the table even needs a "Percentages" column, in fact,
unless it's just standard to provide one.  Note that for 'flex', the
only property here for which percentages could come into play, the
computed value explicitly doesn't resolve percentages.)

Thanks,
~Daniel

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-writing-modes/#writing-mode

Received on Tuesday, 17 April 2012 22:59:18 UTC