Re: [css-logical-properties] the 'inline-{start,end}' values for 'float' and 'clear'

On 5/10/15 14:25, Koji Ishii wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 2, 2015 at 9:12 PM, Jonathan Kew <jfkthame@gmail.com
> <mailto:jfkthame@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Following up on this query from a couple of weeks ago:
>
>
>     On 17/9/15 17:17, Jonathan Kew wrote:
>
>         CSS Logical Properties[1] introduces new 'inline-start' and
>         'inline-end'
>         values, as an alternative to the existing 'left' and 'right'
>         (which are
>         treated as line-left and line-right for vertical modes, AIUI).
>
>         We're ready to support these in Gecko[2], but in view of "issue
>         1" in
>         the current ED:
>
>         # Is this a 2-directional property? Should these just be
>         'start'/'end'?
>
>         we'd like to check whether these values can be regarded as
>         stable enough
>         to implement?
>
>         (FWIW, I think it's preferable to retain the 'inline-' on these
>         values,
>         both for consistency with lots of other logical-direction
>         terminology,
>         and because it seems very plausible that we may want additional
>         values
>         for 'float' in the future, at which point we might deeply regret
>         using
>         bare 'start' and 'end' values here.)
>
>
> I'm personally in mild preference to use 'start' and 'end' for inline
> regardless of 1 or 2 dimensional. That's another way not to regret,
> isn't that?

For 2-dimensional properties, however, it may be unclear to authors 
whether 'start' and 'end' refer to the inline or block direction.

In the case of 'text-align', which already accepts 'start' and 'end' 
values, it's pretty clear that only the inline direction is relevant. 
But I think it's much less obvious that 'float: start' would necessarily 
refer to inline-start. We don't currently have block-direction options 
for 'float', but in principle they seem like a reasonable possibility.

If we use 'start' and 'end' now, and later extend 'float' to two 
dimensions, I could see us ending up with 'float: start | end | 
block-start | block-end', which seems unfortunate. ISTM that using the 
inline-prefixed names from the beginning is preferable. Or would you 
suggest some entirely different names for the block-direction analogs of 
inline 'start' and 'end'?

But if the WG in general prefers the plain 'start' and 'end', obviously 
we can do it that way.

>         A second point I'd like to clarify is that the [inline-]{start,end}
>         values for 'float' are resolved according to the writing-mode and
>         direction of the float's containing block, not those of the float
>         itself. I believe this is what CSS Writing Modes normally
>         expects, and
>         is the more reasonable and useful behavior.
>
>
> I agree on this point.
>
>         Any comments, corrections, clarifications, contradictions, ...?
>
>         JK
>
>
>         [1] https://drafts.csswg.org/css-logical-props/#float-clear
>         [2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1122918
>
>
>
>     As we have patches here that are ready to land in Gecko, I'd like to
>     ask for the WG's (and/or the spec editors') opinions: can we go
>     ahead and implement the inline-{start,end} values as currently
>     drafted, which implies we're considering Issue 1 in CSS Logical
>     Properties to be closed with no change? Or do people want to
>     bikeshed the names here before we ship these values?
>
>
> Maybe we should add this to the agenda for the conf call, though, I'm
> not sure if we can get a concrete resolution as we haven't discussed on
> this for a while.

It would be really helpful to have some clarity here; we have people 
asking for these values in order to make layouts more bidi-ready, and 
the only thing holding up implementation is the question of whether the 
names are stable.

Thanks,

JK

Received on Monday, 5 October 2015 14:21:48 UTC