Re: [css-writing-modes] Rename extent/measure to block-size/inline-size?

Hello Simon,

Friday, February 28, 2014, 11:58:31 AM, you wrote:


> But what do you think of renaming "extent" a.k.a. "logical height"
> to "block size", and "measure" a.k.a. "logical width" to "inline
> size"?

> I may be getting English wrong, but to me "extent" and "measure" are 
> both synonymous to "size".

The verb "to measure" is the act of determining the size. The noun
"the measure" is used both non-specifically/colloquially ("now I have
the measure of your resolve") and also as a specific technical term in
typography.

> The terms by themselves don’t tell me which
> is which. I understand (after reading it in the spec) that "measure" is
> more specific in typography, but I don’t know how much of the "target 
> audience" is familiar with that. I wasn’t.

Typographers and (print or web-and-print) designers are well aware of
that term; its not clear that web-only designers are. This useage is
not restricted to native-English, either. (Ask a French typographer,
such as Jean François Porchez of Typofonderie, if they know the term
"the measure").

Also, lots of things have inline and block dimension (the rendering of
a span for example) while the measure is specific - its the length of
a line of text between the margins, ie how far your eye has to scan
over a line and scan back to the start of the next line. An over-long
measure causes slower reading and increases errors of comprehension.
Putting text into multiple columns has the effect of reducing the
measure.

> As far as I know, these terms do not appear in CSS syntax, so this 
> change would not affect implementations and would be only editorial. 
> It’s still a big change, though; several other specs are using these terms.

I see from todays telcon
"RESOLVED: Rename measure and extent to inline-something and
block-something with something TBA ASAP"

Okay, but (for the benefit of typographers and designers reading the
spec) I would like to see the term "the measure" used as part of the
textual explanation for inline-something - 'in typesetting, this is
often called "the measure"' or something along those lines.




-- 
Best regards,
 Chris                            mailto:chris@w3.org

Received on Wednesday, 12 March 2014 17:18:47 UTC