


From: Ernest Cline <ernestcline@mindspring.com>
Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 15:53:11 -0400
Message-ID: <410-220045521195311843@mindspring.com>
To: "Andrew Fedoniouk" <news@terrainformatica.com>

> [Original Message]
> From: Andrew Fedoniouk <news@terrainformatica.com>
> Again my proposal is simple: to transform 'auto' into <auto>.
> As 'auto' is not applicable to font-size as %% (<auto>)  will
>not be applicable to font-size.
> For me it is pretty natural and logical ...  Am I alone?
> Again <auto> units will solve many mysteries and ugly
> exceptions (e.g. vertical-align) which we have now in
> specification. And will give CSS real flexibility.

"auto" is used in many properties whose actual value
is not a <length>, so defining <auto> as: <number>%% | auto
and replacing "auto" in the definitions with <auto> is nonsense.

That is unless you'd care to explain what you would do with:

You've effectively defined '%%' as a specialized <length>.
Why %% doesn't work with 'font-size' I don't know as I haven't
followed the thread.  (It might produce a computed value
outside the range allowed for 'font-size', but all that would do
is require it to be increased until it was within the actual range.
But if it cannot be made to work with all occurrences of <length>
it will be necessary to specify explicitly the properties that
it works with.

Personally, if such a construct is defined in CSS I would
prefer that it use a unit of '*' because of the analogy with
HTML multilengths. and the idea that if the sum of the %%'s
is always defined to be the greater of 100 or the actual sum
is a ludicrous idea in my opinion.
Received on Friday, 21 May 2004 15:53:08 GMT
