Re: [css3-text] character-based alignment ambiguously defined

On 11/27/12 10:50 PM, "John Daggett" <jdaggett@mozilla.com> wrote:

>...
>
>Overall, I think this is a very awkward way of specifying
>decimal-alignment and it doesn't really seem to fit a natural use
>case; most numeric tables include the same number of decimal places
>throughout a table for consistency.  If there aren't other clear use
>cases, I suggest this be dropped or at least moved to CSS4 Text.

I agree with your assessment of the state of the specification on this
feature, and I would not mind seeing this moved to CSS4 Text. Here's some
additional information on use cases, though.

Not all numeric tables can be aligned by enforcing the same number of
decimal places. In some cases additional decimal places cannot be used,
because that would indicate unwarranted precision. But the main use for
decimal alignment is when there are additional non-numeric glyphs needed
to be displayed in the list. Sometimes there's an asterisk or footnote
marker noting more detail available, and it's often the case that negative
numbers get parenthesized or bracketed. So perhaps the example should use
a list like:

 $1.30
($1.30)*
$85
N/A
 ($.05)**

Thanks,

Alan