Relationships between display, position and float ?

CSS2 sect. 9.7 lays out some rules for changing a floated or positioned
element's display to 'block'. I was trying to implement this in the
Mozilla browser and found that it causes some problems. For example,
changing a floated table to display:block causes problems when there was
a width specified on the table - now the table has become a block so the
width is applied to the block, however when an anonymous table is
generated (to hold the TR and TD elements) then the width is not applied
to it, so the cells are not distributed correctly. It seems heinous to
expect the width to be 'inherited' down into the anonymous table in this
case.

Does anybody know what to motivation was for mandating that a floated
element's display be changed to 'block' rather than just ensuring that
it is _a_ block of some kind? It seems to me that the specification as
it currently stands is in error, if for no other reason than because of
the width issue I described above.

Please forgive me if this has already been posted: I know David Baron is
aware of the issue but I only have access to the archives so I'm not
sure if he already put out a query or suggestion.

Thanks,
- marc

Received on Wednesday, 31 May 2000 05:25:23 UTC