Re: [css3-text] Feature request: "white-space: ignore"

Dear Alan and fantasai,

I honestly don't understand your resentment against the proposed feature.
As to being pragmatic, even if Flexbox was supported today, it will take
2-3 years before it's viable technology to be used on www, based on browser
history[1] and what's in the pipe-line[2]. Basically we are waiting for
IE10 to be obsolete and Saf6 (iOS6 also uses Saf6 which probably means
iPhone3GS, iPod4th, iPad3[3] is out) and things gets even worse on Android.

Adding 'white-space:ignore' not only fixes an important omission from the
'white-space'[4] property (as already noted in the spec), it is also a well
defined and understood issue which can be remedied by a simple shim.
Something that Flexbox can not. However, it doesn't make sense and is
against the idea of standardization to proceed with such a shim, without a
formal agreement or at least a sign of goodwill, in the W3C forum.

>browser will support Flexbox long before a 'white-space:ignore' can be
>specified, standardized and implemented.
I simply can not believe that ignoring white space is such a huge feat that
it would take years to implement, in contrast to the much bigger and wider
concept of Flexbox (where 3 different implementations exist).

I am exceedingly interested in knowing your reason for discarding this
request. I am also keen to hear why, instead of having 1 more value, it's
pref-able to invent an entire new property, 'white-space-collapse'[5], for
the sake of omitting a white space?

   1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_web_browsers
   2. http://caniuse.com/flexbox
   3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iOS_devices
   4. http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-text/#white-space0
   5. http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-text-4/#white-space-collapsing

Cheers, Jon


2013/4/19 Alan Stearns <stearns@adobe.com>

> On 4/19/13 3:44 AM, "Jon Ronnenberg" <jon.ronnenberg@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Yes, you're right about flexbox. Although flexbox is far less pragmatic.
>
> If you're considering pragmatic grounds, there's an additional argument
> for Flexbox:
>
> >## Flexbox
> >
> >Pro: Does indeed address this design issue and is getting steadily
> >increasing support.
>
> Pro: Given the increasing support for Flexbox, it's very likely a given
> browser will support Flexbox long before a 'white-space:ignore' can be
> specified, standardized and implemented.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Alan
>
>