[whatwg] wrapper element

Tue Mar 1 15:20:01 PST 2011

Am 01.03.2011 23:50 schrieb Jordan Dobson:
> On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 2:03 PM, Markus Ernst<derernst at gmx.ch>  wrote:
>
>> Am 28.02.2011 19:56 schrieb Tab Atkins Jr.:
>>
>>
>>> I believe you're arguing that the "wrapper" semantic, being similarly
>>> ubiquitous, thus needs its own new element as well.  What you're
>>> missing is that the "wrapper" semantic is precisely what<div>   already
>>> expresses.
>>>
>>
>> I do understand usuario's<wrapper>  proposal slightly different from<div>:
>> Section 4.5.13 of the spec generally states that the<div>  element is
>> conveying structure, but not semantics.
>>
>> Usuario's<wrapper>  is not structural, but purely presentational. It should
>> actually not be there at all from an HTML point of view, but is necessary
>> for CSS reasons.
>>
>
> Isn't that what the section::outside{ ... } is for? Presentational pseudo
> elements in CSS?
>
> http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-content/#wrapping
>
> Granted it's not available as far as I know... but it seems like it meets
> usario's needs.

::outside covers only a part of the use cases for wrapping elements - 
wrapper containing more than one child elements cannot be replaced by 
::outside - consider the very common case of a centered page:

<body>
   <div id="container">
     <header></header>
     <nav></nav>
     <div id="contents"></div>
     <footer></footer>
   </div>
</body>

#container { margin:0 auto; width:50em; position:relative }
#contents  { margin-left:10em }
nav        { position:absolute; top:50px; left:0; width:9em }

This case would require some kind of body::inside pseudo element, which 
I cannot find in the CSS3 Generated and Replaced Content Module spec 
right now. (Well, sorry if I get too much off-topic now.)