Re: Margin property names

Indeed, I have reread section 5.3 a few times and I think I finally understand.
The confusion comes from the fact that the correspondence between the
absolute and relative version of the margin properties is not one-to-one, as
opposed to e.g. the padding properties.

While space-before and space-after correspond to margin-top and margin-bottom,
in the lr-tb case that is, space-start and space-end do not correspond to
margin-left and margin-right. space-start and space-end are only available for
inline-level formatting objects. Instead start-indent and end-indent must be used.

However, in case the containing object is not a reference area the usage is not as
straightforward as with the absolute margin properties. The reason is that by setting
for example start-indent one sets an abolute distance from the enclosing reference
area instead of the enclosing container. This means one always has to add the
inherited start-indent value to the space between the enclosing container and the
object one is specifying.

Wouldn't it be possible to allow space-start and space-end also for block-level
formatting objects? It would then represent the distance between the formatting
object and its container, the same way margin-left and margin-right do. In fact
this would correspond to replacing "margin-corresponding" with
"space-corresponding" in all the formulae of section 5.3.2.

Werner.
-- 
Werner Donné  --  Re BVBA
Engelbeekstraat 8		Papenhof 15
B-3300 Tienen			B-3583 Beringen
tel: (+32) 486 425803	e-mail: werner.donne@re.be

Received on Tuesday, 30 October 2001 07:42:13 UTC