[selectors3][css-inline] sizing of (floated) ::first-letter

Selectors 3 says the following about ::first-letter

"To allow UAs to render a typographically correct drop cap or initial cap,  
the UA may choose a line-height, width and height based on the shape of  
the letter, unlike for normal elements."

Having left this open as a quality of implementation might have sounded  
like a good idea initially, but the resulting lack of interoperability  
makes it difficult to use in practice.

In all (desktop) browsers I tested other than firefox, the following test  
case shows green and no red, as the floated first letter is sized the same  
way any regular float would be. However, firefox goes the extra mile and  
makes the float be as tight as possible around the glyph, resulting in a  
different line height.

http://florian.rivoal.net/csswg/first-letter.html

While I think I like firefox's behavior better, I would value  
interoperability even more, and it looks like other implementations are in  
agreement.

As [css-inline] introduces initial-letter, which is ultimately better  
suited at doing drop-caps, do we really gain anything by allowing UAs to  
behave differently on ::first-letter than on a span containing the the  
same content? I suggest we close this interop problem by removing the  
sentence quoted above.

Thoughts?

  - Florian

Received on Saturday, 20 September 2014 23:49:12 UTC