RE: [css-flexbox]

> >It was decided that, while the problem you raise is a real one, the
> >proposed solution was suboptimal. A better solution is to reorder the
> >DOM instead of using the 'order' property, as explained in this
> >message.
> >https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2015Aug/0347.html
> 
> That is sadly a lack of resolution to the problem rather than a solution.
> I would like to echo my sentiments and offer a suggestion, in parallel to
what
> Richard[1] posted today.

<disclaimer> I was not involved in the discussions that lead to this
resolution, and this is just my personal opinion on the matter </disclaimer>


I think the whole problem here is that you use flexbox for the layout of
items of diverse natures.

Flexbox, in its nature, is tailored for the display of lists of elements, or
more globally linear layouts of items of similar natures (toolbars, search
bars, ...). I am not sure at all why we introduced the order property for
flexbox (though I guess it was to make it more useful to web developers
while we waited for better alternatives like grids), but to me this looks
like it was a mistake. This property now exists, we cannot remove it, but
that doesn't mean that using it is a good idea, nor that we should make
updates to make it easier to use for use-cases it should not have attempted
to solve in the first place. 

In the long term, I believe the layout of elements of diverse nature should
be solved using CSS Grids instead, which will allow you to put your elements
in the best order for assistive technologies, then place them on the screen
at the right location for the right mode using named cells, and make dom
order completely independent of the layout in a way that does not rely on
order at all. 


Regarding tab-order, I believe that if you built your initial DOM order
properly, it should hardly ever become an issue for you. 

However, it is true that it sometimes would be great to customize tab-order
in css, and you should probably support specifications for dealing with
this, like the currently stalled "nav-index" property, or better yet
"nav-before" and "nav-after" properties. 

However, nav-index was in a CSS3-UI CR draft for MANY years and there was no
implementation. Thus only when there is a strong demonstration of
implementer interest (2+ commitment to implement) should we consider adding
it to CSS4-UI. 

So, if solving the general issue does not seem worth enough to implementers,
I do not seem them try to implement something for the specific issue of
flexbox alone.

Received on Thursday, 14 January 2016 02:52:40 UTC