[CSS21] 10.1 Containing block: when "the ancestor is an inline element": editorial improvements

Hello,

Section 10.1, bullet 4 (with sub-bullets 1 and 2)
http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/visudet.html#containing-block-details

Current text is:

{
4. If the element has 'position: absolute', the containing block is
established by the nearest ancestor with a 'position' of 'absolute',
'relative' or 'fixed', in the following way:

  1.  In the case that the ancestor is an inline element, the containing
block is the bounding box around the padding boxes of the first and the
last inline boxes generated for that element. In CSS 2.1, if the inline
element is split across multiple lines, the containing block is
undefined.
  2.  Otherwise, the containing block is formed by the padding edge of the
ancestor.
}


Proposed replacement (the pairs of ** indicate where editorial changes
would be):

{
4. If the element has 'position: absolute', the containing block is
established by the nearest ancestor with a 'position' of 'absolute',
'relative' or 'fixed', in the following way:

  1. *In case such nearest positioned ancestor is an inline element, then*
the containing block is the bounding box around the padding boxes of
the first and the last inline boxes generated for that element. In CSS
2.1, if the inline element is split across multiple lines, the containing
block is undefined.

  2. *In case such nearest positioned ancestor is a block container, then*
the containing block is formed by the padding edge of such block
container.
}


What can definitely create confusion and misinterpretation is this
proposition:
"In the case that the ancestor is an inline element (...)"
when the proposition should at least explicitly identify such ancestor as
"the nearest positioned ancestor".

Gérard
-- 
CSS 2.1 Test suite RC6, March 23rd 2011
http://test.csswg.org/suites/css2.1/20110323/html4/toc.html

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Received on Thursday, 8 March 2012 05:11:13 UTC