CSS WG Blog Masonry Spec Update and Open Issues

Masonry Spec Update and Open Issues

The CSS Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of CSS Grid Layout Level 3, which defines masonry layout. Updates in this revision include defining “dense packing” for masonry, and clarifying baseline alignment and automatic track repetition. As published earlier, masonry layout re-uses the grid-* templating properties and the spec has sketched out an item-flow proposal to control orientation and placement order. See the WebKit Blog’s Item Flow, Part 1: A new unified concept for layout post for an overview of this idea.

There remain some major syntax questions open, which the Working Group is interested in broader feedback on:

• Enabling masonry layout: what display name to use? This is a bit of a bikeshedding question, but we do want it to feel like masonry (essentially 1-axis grid layout) is a variation on grid layout (2-axis grid layout), so the CSS Working Group is looking for ideas that incorporate the keyword grid somehow.
• Interpreting row vs column in masonry layouts This starts to get into questions of what’s obvious at first glance vs what’s obvious when you integrate it with the rest of CSS, and the answers thus far are… murky. It would be good to get more authoring perspective here.

If you anticipate using masonry layouts, we’d appreciate your perspective on what would create the most intuitive (and error-resistant) system for you to learn and use, so let us know your thoughts!

As always, you can send feedback by either commenting on or filing an issue in GitHub (preferable) or sending mail to the (archived) public mailing list www-style@w3.org with the spec code ([css-grid-3]) 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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