Re: [CSS21] Why do overflow values other than 'visible' establish a new block formatting context?

On 4/2/2012 11:35 AM, L. David Baron wrote:
> On Monday 2012-04-02 11:24 +0800, Daniel Tan/BoltClock wrote:
>> This leads us to wonder: why is this so? I am under the impression
>> that removing floats from normal flow will interfere with clipping
>> and scrolling, but am not sure how exactly. I can't seem to find any
>> previous threads in the mailing list that discuss the overflow
>> property in particular.
>
> Fundamentally, because if the spec didn't say this, then having
> floats intersect with something that's scrollable would require the
> browser to rewrap (around intruding floats) the contents of the
> scrollable element every time it scrolls.  This is technically what
> CSS 2.0 required, but it was never implemented, and it would have
> been a huge problem for speed of scrolling.
>
> -David
>

Sorry to bring up this old thread. I'd completely forgotten about it. I 
do have something to clarify:

If the float is contained within an element whose overflow is other than 
visible, does it get clipped within that container element? If so, does 
the float affect any content that comes after the container element, or 
just the content that would have reflowed around it within the 
container? Or was none of this defined in CSS2.0?

It probably doesn't matter to implementers or authors anymore since it's 
been superseded, but I'm quite curious.

-- 
Daniel Tan/BoltClock
NOVALISTIC • Stellar Software Development & Design
<http://NOVALISTIC.com>

Received on Friday, 3 August 2012 03:18:36 UTC