[css-flexbox] Should <br> get lumped into a "contiguous run of text" to form an anonymous flex item?

• From: Daniel Holbert <dholbert@mozilla.com>
• Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 14:08:00 -0800
• To: www-style <www-style@w3.org>
• Message-ID: <52E04140.7020604@mozilla.com>

Hi www-style,
I just noticed that the current flexbox ED says the following about
anonymous flex items:
 # ...each contiguous run of text that is
 # directly contained inside a flex container
 # is wrapped in an anonymous flex item.
https://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-flexbox/#flex-item
Notably, "contiguous run of text" is rather specific and does not seem
to include <br> elements.
However, every browser I've tested [1] *does* seems to lump <br>
elements into anonymous flex items.
Here's a testcase:
https://people.mozilla.org/~dholbert/tests/flexbox/compat_tests/anon-flex-items-1.html
(If the text "Here comes a <br> element: There it went!" is all grouped
together [with a linebreak], then <br> is getting lumped into the
anonymous flex item.)
SO: Should we change the spec to match implementations? (Maybe the
current de facto behavior is really what the spec *wanted* to say, even
though it doesn't?)  Or is the current spec text really what we want, in
which case this is a bug that needs fixing in all modern browsers?
Thanks,
~Daniel
[1] I've tested IE11, Firefox 26, Opera 12.16, & Chrome 34.0.1788.0 dev

Received on Wednesday, 22 January 2014 22:08:27 UTC