Re: [css-regions] Named Flows, Elements and Box Generation

Tab and others wrote:

 > > ± Håkon. First, explain fragmentation via named flows and region chains.
 > > ± Provide scripting access so that people like Johannes do not have to wait for
 > > ± browsers to implement more 'first class citizens' of CSS. Then see what
 > > ± cowpaths we should pave from actual use on-screen in browsers.

 > > • Focus on adding new low-level capabilities to the web platform that are secure and efficient.
 > > • Expose low-level capabilities that explain existing features, such as HTML and CSS, allowing authors to understand and replicate them.
 > > • Develop, describe and test new high-level features in JavaScript, and allow web developers to iterate on them before they become standardized. This creates a virtuous cycle between standards and developers.

 > This, precisely.  Current Regions is the low-level primitive.
 > Attempting to design just a high-level primitive (or set of them) will
 > *guarantee* that useful use-cases will fall through the cracks, and be
 > unable to be addressed.  For the health of the platform, we *must*
 > design by starting from low-level primitives to make lots of things
 > possible, and then adding higher-level sugar on top to make common
 > things easy.

I see two independent questions here:

  a) should we design low- or high-level features?
  b) should we base new CSS designs on presentational elements?

For a), I think we should do both. If you design a new car, do you
start by thinking about the nuts and bolts, or do you start by drawing
the chassis? Good car designers probably do both. I can see use cases
for basic regions (I even co-authored a proposal in 1996 [1]), but I
don't have to wade through many javascripted cowpaths to know that
pages, columns, and spreads are fundamental features of documents. 

For b), I think the answer is no. And if you disagree, maybe you
should consult the HTML WG before proceeding.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-layout
[2] http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/introduction.html#presentational-markup
[3] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/introduction.html#presentational-markup

Cheers,

-h&kon
              Håkon Wium Lie                          CTO °þe®ª
howcome@opera.com                  http://people.opera.com/howcome

Received on Monday, 28 October 2013 21:47:04 UTC