Re: [css-multicol] column-width bound (>0) is illegal

On Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 9:10 AM, Alan Stearns <stearns@adobe.com> wrote:
> On 10/15/13 8:38 AM, "Tab Atkins Jr." <jackalmage@gmail.com> wrote:
>>Per our design patterns for CSS properties (apparently not written
>>down anywhere, unfortunately*), we don't use open continuous
>>intervals, because then whether something is valid or invalid depends
>>on unpredictable and UA-specific rounding behavior.
>>
>>However, 'column-width' states that its value must be a <length>
>>greater than zero.  This violates that constraint.
>>
>>I suggest that we instead state that there is a minimum size for
>>columns (1px? ua-specific?),
>
> Given that you want to avoid UA-specific behavior, it would not make any
> sense to make the minimum size UA-specific.

Regardless of what we do about the actual minimum size, the behavior
for small values will be UA-specific, as the rounding behavior can
produce differences of several columns in the final result.  For
example, if we set the minimum to 1px, then what happens to 1.1px?
1.01px?  In a 1000px wide element, these will definitely produce
unpredictable numbers of columns.

That sort of behavior difference isn't ideal, but is acceptable, as
the result is still vaguely predictable. It's much better to have a
slightly unpredictable number of columns than being unable to predict
whether a property will be invalid or not.

~TJ

Received on Tuesday, 15 October 2013 17:18:22 UTC