CSS WG Blog Updated Working Drafts: CSS Display, CSS S…

Updated Working Drafts: CSS Display, CSS Sizing, CSS Box Alignment

The CSS Working Group has published several updated Working Drafts:

CSS Display Module Level 3

This module describes how the CSS formatting box tree is generated from the document element tree and defines the display property that controls it. Additions since CSS2 include: a flow-root value to create a block formatting context root (BFC), a contents value to discard the element’s box but keep its children, inline list items, a run-in layout model slightly less wonky than the one proposed in CSS2.0. Significant changes since the last publication are listed in the changes section.

We anticipate this being the last draft before the transition to Candidate Recommendation, therefore this is the “last call” for comments.

CSS Intrinsic and Extrinsic Sizing Module Level 3

This module extends the CSS sizing properties with keywords that represent content-based “intrinsic” sizes and context-based “extrinsic” sizes, allowing CSS to more easily describe boxes that fit their content or fit into a particular layout context. Significant change ssince hte last publicaiton are listed in the changes section and include renaming the fill keyword to stretch to match the similar stretch option in the alignment properties. Remaining work prior to Candidate Recommendation includes addressing issues in the extrinsic sizing section (which includes stretch) and handling replaced elements’ interaction with the intrinsic sizing keywords.

CSS Box Alignment Module Level 3

This module contains the features of CSS relating to the alignment of boxes within their containers in the various CSS box layout models: block layout, table layout, flex layout, and grid layout. This update incorporates several rounds of changes to the baseline alignment rules as well as the following syntactic changes:

• Dropped hyphen in first-baseline and last-baseline. See discussion for rationale.
• Added place-* as shorthands for align-* + justify-*.
• Dropped fallback alignment feature for distribution keywords; this is due to their incompatibility with shorthanding. Alternate syntaxes are under investigation in Issue 1002, along with a potential syntactic restriction on safe/unsafe in Issue 1001 to allow better integration with the shorthands.

We are hoping to take this module to CR this year. In the meantime, we are looking for

• Reviews of baseline alignment and other details.
• Input on the open issues.
• More illustrations, if anyone wants to draw them. 🙂
• Any other feedback

As always, please send feedback by either filing an issue in GitHub (preferable) or sending mail to the (archived) public mailing list www-style@w3.org with the spec code ([css-display], [css-sizing], [css-align]) and your comment topic in the subject line. (Alternatively, you can email one of the editors and ask them to forward your comment.)

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