Felix Miata wrote:
The author here is the lead layout developer in the Mozilla project:
http://dbaron.org/log/2005-12#e20051228a
Well, I don't read anything in the author's cited reference for CSS floats -
http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/visuren.html#floats - to imply that floats
were intended solely for floating small bits of content in a paragraph.
The source quoted specifically refers to block-level boxes as well as
line boxes. Floating DIVs that create new positioning contexts is
perfectly within the intent of CSS as I read it.
The reliance on "extremely obscure details" the author refers to is
justified by nothing more than a post
by himself over "what happens to the flow around floats when floats have
negative margin-box dimensions". I am sure this _is_ tricky, and the
intended behaviour in CSS may well be unclear. But this
would apply to someone applying negative margin to floats in a small
local setting just as much as
in the major layout containers that we also float today.
I don't think the Baron reference is sufficient evidence for the
assertion that using floats for layout is an abuse of them. On the
contrary, I have seen several references in the last few years that
stated floats *were* the preferred layout method by the W3C CSS working
group. Who's right? Without detailed research into the mailing list
archives of the working group, there's not much point arguing about
things like this.
The point is, floats observe the letter of web standards as we have them
today, and provide a robust method of achieving layouts that don't work
as well or are harder to achieve using other positioning methods.
Cheers
Ian
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