Re: [css3-flexbox] [css3-grid-layout] Too Many Alignment Properties

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 3:10 AM, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 2:25 AM, fantasai <fantasai.lists@inkedblade.net> wrote:
>> So far we have 'vertical-align' and 'text-align', which mainly have to do
>> with
>> text, but the new layout models are starting to introduce a lot more aligns.
>> Flexbox has four different alignment properties. IIRC Grid introduces
>> several
>> more that do roughly the same thing but not quite. And there are use cases
>> for
>> alignment in general block layout -- there's been drafts for alignment
>> properties
>> in both dimensions there (that need homes, but that's a separate issue).
>>
>> Rather than having every layout system design and implement its own set of
>> alignment properties, I'd like us to take a good look and see if we can boil
>> these down to a single set of properties that we can all share.
>>
>> There are basically two concepts of what alignment applies to:
>>  a) the thing itself
>>  b) the thing's contents
>>
>> And then there are the two axes: main axis vs. cross axis; inline axis vs.
>> block;
>> rows vs. columns; etc.
>>
>> There's the problem of needing four appropriately generic and appropriately
>> precise names, but I think we should be able to get away with four
>> properties
>> in CSS total. Values that don't apply in a particular layout mode can be
>> defined
>> to fall back to something sensible. I think that's better than having more
>> and
>> more properties that do roughly the same thing but take effect or not
>> depending
>> on the layout mode.
>
> I'm willing to try it out, but I'm not confident it'll be an
> improvement.  Let's work on it, though.

Actually, I just thought of a substantial problem.  Flexbox has 4
alignment properties:

1. aligns the contents in the main axis
2. aligns the contents in the cross axis
3. aligns the *lines* of content in the cross axis
4. on a child, aligns it within the flexbox's cross axis.

While 1/2/4 map to your proposed alignment properties, 3 doesn't.
Flexbox has two differents sets of "contents" that can be aligned
separately.

~TJ

Received on Thursday, 2 February 2012 13:37:01 UTC