RE: [css3-exclusions] Issue 15183

> -----Original Message-----
> From: L. David Baron [mailto:dbaron@dbaron.org]
> Sent: Monday, July 30, 2012 11:17 AM
> 
> On Monday 2012-07-30 16:53 +0000, Rossen Atanassov wrote:
> > This is an update to Issue 15183
> (https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=15183).
> >
> > When reviewing the processing model with the co-editors of the spec we
> couldn't find any technical reason to keep this issue active. The issue
> statement is not correct since we do not require nor suggest that exclusions
> follow the CSS 2.1 absolute positioning. We simply don't forbid it and when
> used in that combination authors can achieve compelling typographic
> designs.
> >
> > We propose resolving the issue as 'invalid'.
> 
> The underlying issue is that having an exclusion model without a connected
> collision-handling model is broken, because it leads authors to build designs
> that are extremely inflexible, and only work at the specific page size for
> which they designed it.

I believe you're referring to document-centric designs where exclusions are part of the document flow (a.k.a. floaters) and their natural behavior must be to avoid each-other since as a designer you have very limited control to their position. We are interested in a more generalized solution that would work well for both document and application layouts as well. Exclusions that are grid or flex items for example prove to be very natural way to address both positioning and collision. The difference however is that the collision is done by the containing layout and not the exclusions itself.

Flex and grid are both flexible thus I don't really see your point about static page size (unless, again, you're referring to the abs pos element inside a document).

> Floats provide both a exclusion model (wrapping text around the
> float) collision-handling model (moving a float to the side or down when it
> would intersect another float).  CSS exclusions provide only the exclusion
> model, which means that authors will get page-size-specific layouts when
> they use it with a layout model without a collision-handling model (i.e., every
> layout model that they might use it with).

This is correct and this is why this spec is about exclusions not floaters and/or collision handling. If and when there is CSS3 (or 4) floaters spec then I would too expect to see collision handling of exclusions into it.

I want to outline once again that this spec doesn't insist on any particular positioning (or sizing for that matter) scheme.

> We have pretty much the same discussion every face-to-face meeting.

Correct, and we would like to resolve that since there is another f2f coming and it will be optimal if this issue is behind us.

> I object to resolving the issue as invalid.

Is this a formal objection?

Thanks,
Rossen

Received on Monday, 30 July 2012 19:11:31 UTC