[thelist] Styling in-line elements

[Jack Timmons]

On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 1:01 PM, Barney Carroll <barney.carroll at gmail.com>wrote:

> For me the definition of inline is an object that follows the flow of text
> —
> meaning that it can break up text nodes. I can think of a few situations
> where you might want to have a system of blocks taken out of an inline
> context [ <p>I'd have to tell you to check it out on ALA.* <span
> class="footnote"><a href="http://alistapart.com">A List Apart — for people
> who make websites</a></span></p> with
> .footnote{display:none;position:absolute;bottom:0;} p:hover
> .footnote{display:block} ] … but if you're sticking inside the flow, you're
> more than likely going to screw up your text.


My biggest was complaint was if someone did <div><p><label/><input/> and
then styled the label as such that if I -did- find that the label was
covering unneeded text and fixed it that the label would cause the layout to
break.

But then I get into the question of "Should input elements be their own
paragraph?". Perhaps they should be placed in their own div, since they're
not text. In which case, that answers the inline debate: they're already
separate, there's no need to style an inline element with block formatting.

Maybe I need to dig far deeper into the HTML spec. Or, maybe I'm the only
moron with this sort of question.


> Mate of mine recently told me he didn't bother with float: and just made
> everything display:inline. I just kept my eyes firmly fixed on him and
> slowly backed out of the room…
>
> Regards,
> Barney Carroll
> Web designer & front-end developer
>

Your friend isn't of a psilocybian persuasion, is he?

-- 
-Jack Timmons
http://www.trotlc.com
Twitter: @codeacula