CSS Publication Updates August 2012
The CSS Working Group has published updated Working Drafts of the following CSS modules: Fonts Level 3, Regions, Fragmentation Level 3, Selectors Level 4. Additionally, Values and Units Level 3 has been published as a Candidate Recommendation. (The Flexible Box Layout Module was approved by the CSSWG earlier, but is still waiting for the W3C Director’s approval.)
- CSS Fonts Module Level 3 updated Working Draft
- Fonts Level 3 covers CSS3 features relating to font selection and feature controls.
Changes since the last Working Draft are listed in the Changes section.
- CSS Regions Module updated Working Draft
- Regions adds the ability to combine disparate elements into a single flow and to direct that flow through multiple boxes, and defines a processing model for laying out such chained boxes. Changes since the last Working Draft primarily affect the object model for regions, and are listed in the Changes section.
- CSS Fragmentation Module Level 3 updated Working Draft
- Fragmentation Level 3 defines how content is broken across multiple “fragmentation containers”, e.g. pages or columns. It also defines some properties to control where such breaks occur. Changes since the last Working Draft are listed in the Changes section and include the addition of
recto and verso values for page-breaking. This is expected to be the last Working Draft before Last Call.
- Selectors Level 4 updated Working Draft
- Selectors Level 4 defines patterns that match against elements in a tree, and are used to select elements in CSS style rules and the DOM’s
querySelector and related APIs. Changes from the previous draft include the addition of a scoped selector section, wildcard matching and language lists in the :lang() pseudo-class, new drag and drop pseudo-classes, a new :user-error pseudo-class, a syntax change to the subject indicator, and a switch from a :column() pseudo-class to a column combinator. Feedback is requested, particularly on the changes.
- CSS Values and Units Module Level 3 Candidate Recommendation
- Values and Units Level 3 covers new units like
rem (like em, but always relative to the root element’s font size) and vh (percent of viewport height) as well as the calc(), toggle(), and attr() functional notations. W3C encourages implementations of this module, and welcomes feedback resulting from such implementation. Changes since the Last Call Working Draft are listed in the Changes section.
As always, please send feedback to the (archived) public mailing list www-style@w3.org with the appropriate spec code ([css3-fonts], [css3-regions], [css3-break], [selectors4], or [css3-values]) and your comment topic in the subject line. (Alternatively, you can email one of the editors and ask them to forward your comment.)
Minutes Telecon 2012-08-29
- Resolved: Keep
clip-path in the Masking spec, mark integration with clip as an issue
- Resolved:
rotate3d() is interpolated by its angle when the two (normalized) vectors match, by matrix interpolation otherwise.
- Resolved:
rotateX/Y/Z() interpolate with rotate3d() in the obvious way.
- Resolved: Remove
mask-attachment from the Masking spec.
- Resolved: Keep
mask-origin in the Masking spec.
- Open discussion on
mask-clip, and whether/how to allow unclipped masks.
Minutes San Diego F2F August 2012: Sticky Positioning, Animations, Scientific Notation
Sticky Positioning
Edward O’Connor showed a demo of position: sticky, which is similar to relative positioning in that the element takes up space, but causes the element to be “trapped” by the viewport while its containing block is visible. Everyone agrees it’s cool.
(This is an effect commonly done with JS; see for example the map in Yelp search results; or the section headers in Apple’s iPhone address book; or column headers in a spreadsheet. The proposal would trigger this effect with a single CSS declaration.)
Animations
- Resolved: Animations override all normal rules, but are overridden by all
!important rules.
- Resolved: Transitions happen last in the cascade.
- Resolved: Remove
initAnimationEvent method.
- Resolved: Publish updated WD with those edits.
Scientific Notation
Resolved: Add scientific notation to CSS numbers (not integers) using SVG syntax.
Full minutes
Minutes San Diego August 2012: Writing Modes, Lists and Counter Styles, Case-sensitivity and Normalization
Writing Modes
- Koji summarized the results of the August UTC meeting
- Resolved:
text-orientation:upright is a forced upright; it always means upright (because UTR50 will not define SVO anymore)
Lists
Tab Atkins summarized what’s in the Lists module, and asked for feedback:
- marker positioning / layout rules
counter-set property, to handle <li value="5">
::marker pseudo-element
marker-attachment property to handle bidi use cases: controls whether list marker “belongs” to item or to list, wrt directional formatting
inline-list-item display type
Case-sensitivity and Normalization
See summary of the issue. Resolved: User-defined identifiers in CSS are case-insensitive, insensitivity of a type TBD, but where the type of case comparison allows for atomization and hashing via a single up-front conversion.
Counter Styles
Resolved: Move @counter-style rule and symbols() function to the Counter Styles module. Retain in that spec the 2.0, 2.1 and the six way cjk-ideographic split (which is marked at-risk). Move rest of counter styles to a registry on W3C wiki.
Full minutes
Minutes San Diego F2F August 2012: Filters, Transforms, Masking
Filters
- Resolved: Publish Filters FPWD
- Resolved: Dirk Schulze (krit) as editor on Filter effects
Transforms
- Discussed interpolation of rotate3d()
- Resolved: Publish WD of Transforms after
rotate3d() animation is resolved
Masking
krit introduced the FXTF Masking proposal to the CSSWG.
Full minutes
Minutes San Diego F2F August 2012: Fonts, Text
Fonts
- Resolved: Accept
font-variant-ligatures as written: normal is initial value, and none is added which turns off those features.
- Resolved: Publish a new WD of CSS3 Fonts.
Text
- Resolved: Make
word-wrap shorthand for overflow-wrap
- Resolved:
text-shadow on an element applies to decorations imposed by its ancestors, because it is what is most widely implemented now.
- Resolved:
blink is value of text-decoration-line and it is deprecated with warning that authors should not use it.
- Resolved: Add example of implementing
<blink> with animations in the UA style sheet appendix.
- Need examples for
text-justify showing differences among values
- Resolved: Split text-decoration into separate module.
- Resolved: Add a new value to
text-decoration-skip controlling whether decorations are drawn through the padding/border/margin of display:inline elements. This new value is not part of the initial value and therefore (change from CSS 2.1) decorations imposed by ancestors are drawn through an inline element’s padding/border/margin by default.
Full minutes
Minutes San Diego F2F August 2012: Experimental Features Policy
Experimental Features Policy
The CSSWG discussed the various problems being handled currently by the vendor prefixing policy and how to solve them better. A rough consensus was adopted around a variant of dbaron’s proposal, which is summarized from the minutes below. A more formal version will be written up for formal adoption in the near future.
Section A: Non-Web Features
If it’s not Web-ready, and must ship, ship it prefixed and don’t expose to Web. (Prefixes here avoid clashes with future Web features.)
Section B: Standards-track Features
Shipping
- Experimental features ship only in non-release builds. CR-level features ship in release builds as currently specified.
- Release pre-CR if 3 browsers implement, and we have rough interop, and we agree it’s a good idea.
- If a browser breaks the rules and ships in a release anyway, and we have rough interop and agree it’s a good idea, everyone can release.
Prefixing
- If current criteria are satisfied, ship unprefixed.
- If it’s not stable (i.e. CR + some respectable if incomplete set of passing tests), ship both prefixed and unprefixed versions so that authors can tweak the input to specific implementations.
Full minutes
Minutes San Diego F2F August 2012: Cascading Variables
Cascading Variables
- Resolved: Syntax of variables settled on var-foo and var(foo); i.e. not using
$foo notation.
- Action: TabAtkins, fantasai, and glazou to write blog post explaining why not using
$.
- Resolved: Include fallback in Level 1.
- Resolved: Defer
parent-var() to Level 2.
- Resolved: Accept Variables Level 2 with
parent-var() as work item.
- Resolved: Publish WD of CSS Variables providing sentence jdaggett objects to is removed.
The CSS Working Group chose not to adopt a $foo syntax and to continue using a functional notation for this feature for several reasons:
- The scope of a variable declaration, like a CSS property declaration, cascades and inherits through the element tree. This behavior is fundamentally different from every server-side processing language that uses
$foo and cannot be duplicated on the server side.
- These variables can only be used within property values. They are not global macros. Languages that allow
$foo usually treat them as macro expansions that can be used anywhere, for example to shorten selectors or to represent multiple declarations in a declaration block.
- There are reasons to want general-use macros in CSS. Not using
$foo leaves this syntax open to future extensions of CSS and allows either server-side macros or a future CSS macro expansion feature to co-exist with cascading variables.
- Using a functional notation allows extensions like specifying fallback values (
var(foo, fallback-value)) or using the parent’s scope (parent-var(foo)) to be simple extensions consistent with the basic syntax.
For further reading on this topic, see “Let’s Talk about CSS Variables” by Tab Atkins (CSSWG spec editor) and “CSS Variables, why we drop the $foo notation” by Daniel Glazman (CSSWG co-chair).
Full minutes
Minutes San Diego F2F August 2012: Images 4, FPWD Criteria, Grid Layout
CSS Image Values and Replaced Content Level 4
Discussed image-set(). Various issues were raised, including:
- Whether to have
x as a synonym for dppx: multiple opinions expressed.
- Whether the UA just picks one and fails after trying, or whether it should fall back to something else in the list if the image fails to load: CSSWG prefers fallback within image-set() to work.
- Whether it should be allowed to nest: general agreement to disallow nesting.
Raised/reraised and discussed various issues wrt element(), including:
- Allow full selectors, or just IDs?
- Is pointing to SVG paint servers a use case, or is it already handled by url() references?
- Can it point to a single page of a paged view?
- How can it handle reflections?
- How can it reference DOM elements not inserted in the document?
- Naming conflict with GCPM element()?
- Is it drawn as a real or pseudo-stacking context?
Resolved: Publish FPWD of Images Level 4
CSS Grid Layout
- Discussed named lines. General agreement that what’s in the spec is not good, but no proposal for what’s good.
- Fundamental conflict in Grid Layout module is between application designers’ “grid” (what’s in the spec) and typographic designers’ “grid” (what some other people want). Peter to propose a Unified Model for grid.
- Discussed various markup models, and how the current spec requires flattening all markup in order to put things into the grid; how to change Grid Layout to work with common HTML markup patterns.
- Discussed default handling of grid element’s children, whether to turn them into grid items (like in Flexbox) or have them form a single flow, and pull positioned items out into the grid.
- Discussed subgrid proposal, which has grid items inside a grid item align to and participate in the sizing of the outer grid, but be positioned within the grid item.
- Discussed naming of grid properties that define tracks, to make them less confusable with grid properties that position things into tracks.
- Phil summarized the status of Grid Layout module
Full minutes: Images Level 4, FPWD Criteria, Grid Layout
Minutes San Diego F2F August 2012: CSSOM, Regions, Exclusions, Collisions
CSSOM
- Status update on CSSOM
- Discussed serialization of declaration lists, particularly wrt white space and indentation
Regions, Exclusions, and Collisions
- Resolved: Publish a new WD of Regions.
- Discussed collision problem with exclusions and absolute-positioning, and how to represent that in the draft.
- Discussed Florian’s proposal for collision handling.
Full minutes: F2F planning, CSSOM, Regions, Exclusions, and Collisions
![[Photo: group photo of the CSS working group in San Francisco]](/Style/CSS/csswg-2016.jpg)
Contact: