Re: spec complain: css letter-spacing in tabs not clear

On Tuesday 2015-01-27 13:19 -0500, Zack Weinberg wrote:
> To illustrate that this might not be quite as simple as it appears,
> here's another example from the bug:
> 
> <!doctype html>
> <pre>
> <span style="letter-spacing: 1em">123456789</span>
> <span style="letter-spacing: 1em">&#9;9</span>
> <span>&#9;9</span>
> </pre>
> 
> Here I think the behavior that would be most intuitive is for the
> first and second 9s to align, but not the third.

Though it's worth noting that the current spec computes tab stops
based on the characteristics of the block, not based on inlines
within them.

If we want to change that, I think we should change it wholesale,
and not have it one way (use inlines) for letter spacing and the
other way (block characterisics only) for everything else (fonts).

See:
http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-text/#white-space-phase-2
http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-text/#tab-size-property

I'm not sure if a change to take tab stops from inlines would be
Web-compatible (though I really have no idea).

(That's why I suggested in
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1124344#c16 that it
would be the letter-spacing of the block that applied.)

-David

-- 
𝄞   L. David Baron                         http://dbaron.org/   𝄂
𝄢   Mozilla                          https://www.mozilla.org/   𝄂
             Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
             What I was walling in or walling out,
             And to whom I was like to give offense.
               - Robert Frost, Mending Wall (1914)

Received on Tuesday, 27 January 2015 18:32:01 UTC