Re: [css-writing-modes][CSS21][css3-ui] defining 'cursor: auto' properly (Issue 48)

This is now tracked as Issue 48 of [css3-ui]: https://wiki.csswg.org/spec/css3-ui#issue48

(comments below)
> On 21 Jan 2013, at 20:19, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 3:53 AM, L. David Baron <dbaron@dbaron.org> wrote:
>> The 'auto' value of the 'cursor' property currently has, in both:
>> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/REC-CSS2-20110607/ui.html#propdef-cursor
>> [2] http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-ui/#cursor
>> the definition:
>>  # auto
>>  #   The UA determines the cursor to display based on the current context.
>> which is nowhere near clear enough to lead to interoperability.
>> 
>> This has been previously discussed in:
>> [3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2000Jan/thread.html#msg21
>> [4] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-css-wg/2001JulSep/0388.html (attached, since I was the sole author and can thus change its confidentiality level)
>> [5] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-css-wg/2001OctDec/0014.html (teleconference minutes 2001-10-08, member confidential)
>> [6] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-css-wg/2002JulSep/0021.html (my comments on a member-confidential draft of css3-ui, largely restating the above)
>> [7] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-css-wg/2002JulSep/0289.html (Ian Hickson's Last Call comments on CSS 2.1, again largely just restating the above)
>> 
>> The basic problem is that there are two basic interpretations of the
>> spec (with various options in between):
>> 
>>  (1) All UA default behavior for the 'cursor' property must be
>>  encoded in the 'auto' value; using the 'cursor' property in the UA
>>  style sheet is forbidden.
>> 
>>  (2) The need for an 'auto' value exists only because there are
>>  some elements that should have a 'text' or 'vertical-text' cursor
>>  for part of the element and the 'default' cursor for other parts
>>  of the element.  The 'auto' value exists only to cover this case,
>>  and all other UA default behavior should be described in the UA
>>  style sheet as for the rest of CSS.
>> 
>> I strongly prefer option (2), since it is more in line with the way
>> the rest of CSS works in terms of cascading.  Gecko implements
>> option (2).
>> 
>> Ian Hickson's proposal for option (2) quoting from [7] above is:
>>  # auto
>>  #   Same as 'text' when the cursor is over text, otherwise 'default'.
>> 
>> Adjusting this for the possibility of vertical text yields:
>>  # auto
>>  #   Same as 'text' or 'vertical-text' when the cursor is over text
>>  #   (depending on the glyph orientation), otherwise 'default'.
>> 
>> (I'd like this text to be more precise; I think glyph orientation is
>> the correct term based on
>> http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-writing-modes/#text-flow and
>> http://fantasai.inkedblade.net/style/discuss/vertical-text/paper ,
>> but I can't find any terms for the possible values glyph orientation
>> can have.)
>> 
>> I propose that we adopt the first of these definitions as errata to
>> CSS 2.1 and the second (possibly revised with better terminology and
>> references) for css3-ui.

I agree with the proposal, but disagree that glyph orientation is the right term.

Given “writing-mode: vertical-rl; text-orientation: upright;” I would expect a 'vertical-text' cursor, so it seems writing mode (computed value of the writing-mode property?) is what we’re after, not glyph orientation.

However, in a run of Tate-chuu-yoko (as triggered by 'text-combine-upright’), I would expect a ‘text’ cursor. As far as I can tell, [css-writing-modes] does not say anything about what the writing mode of a run of tate-chuu-yoko is. If that’s considered horizontal, it would be good to make that explicit, and if that’s considered vertical, we either need a new term to refer to from [css3-ui], or we need to single out this case.

 - Florian

Received on Wednesday, 26 November 2014 13:03:50 UTC