Adobe Launches CSS Regions Prototype | Hacker News Reader

Adobe Launches CSS Regions Prototype

labs.adobe.com

27 pointsrasebo15 comments

Dear Adobe: Please stop trying to make the web into print.

Serious Comment: This is a custom WebKit build and they are apparently proposing a spec to add "Regions" to CSS, which seems a rather vaguely defined effort to bring print type layout conventions to CSS. Flowing content from one box to another seems like it would be user-hostile to the usual goal of reading articles. I seriously can't think of a good reason why this is needed, anybody have any ideas?

Please stop trying to make the web into print.

What is wrong with having some print-like layout abilities? It certainly makes documents more cross-platform as I no longer need to give a blog and PDF version of the same article. I love the idea that I could just call up my local printer and say, "print off 3000 of http://myblog.com/article/1 on glossy." To me, it seems that they are lobbying their interests but doing so in an open forum, asking for input and at the same time playing nice. They're putting PDF and Flash on the line in proposing this, let's remember. Isn't this what everyone wants from Adobe? Am I missing something? Furthermore, print is recognizable by all, young or old. It's not like I believe Adobe isn't tactical, but maybe they are trying to shift their interests in the right direction.

The web already uses custom, print-like layouts.

You should probably be thrilled with Adobe's spec since it moves the details of those layouts out of HTML/Javascript and into CSS. Try running the readability bookmarklet on content from http://www.nytimes.com/chrome.

As well as bringing print-like layouts to the web, it also brings the possibility of using HTML & CSS to create content for print (e.g. magazines).

It would be interesting if you could use Dreamweaver to make a website (NMCOT) then use Adobe's CSS regions to apply a print stylesheet to turn it into something for print (e.g. a poster).

I think that with large screens becoming more available, it is not a bad idea to provide a way to create text layouts that go beyond the single column of text (making text lines longer hurts legibility).

We already have CSS3 text columns, but this proposal seems more general.

> We already have CSS3 text columns

Aka Multi Column[0]

And Grid Positioning[1] and Template Layout[2] and Flexible Box Layout[3]

[0] http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-multicol/

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-grid/

[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/WD-css3-layout-20100429/

[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-flexbox/

nice. But I fear we will still be doing float-based layouts in a long, long time.

long, long time is well defined: IE7 being still relevant. (IE8 has support for display: table-* properties, so it gets much easier).

Well, yes. The regions idea seems to benefit people who are trying to bring a more mag-like experience to touch devices like the iPad. If you think about it and look at the spec, CSS regions gets pretty close to what adobe is already doing with the Wired ipad magazine. Them being the ones presenting this spec isn't a coincidence.

Regarding content flowing between boxes and hostile experiences: you can create user-hostile experiences with just about anything - but it doesn't mean everyone will. Tools will be tools, and more stylistic freedom isn't bad if the designer/developer does things in a way to benefit the user and not his aesthetic muscle.

TL;DR: more freedom is a good thing. In the hands of the right people.

Access denied based on IP? Come on Adobe, are you bloody serious?

Does .nyud.net work for you? http://labs.adobe.com.nyud.net/technologies/cssregions/ If not, here's Bing's cache: http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=CSS+Regions+prototype&d... (Google seem to have removed their cache links from SERPs).

Edit: was the page blocked or just the download?

I was also blocked based on IP.

This seems like an interesting idea, but the samples provided by Adobe are frankly terrible. The text just cuts off at an arbitrary point when the regions run out of room.

I have no idea how you would use this to lay out articles of varying length on multiple screen sizes – unless you use JavaScript to dynamically generate regions. And if you do, the whole point of doing this through CSS is pretty much lost.

You can try this yourself, it looks pretty good to me. The webkit guys seem pretty impressed.

https://twitter.com/beverloo/status/67946771208343552

I got an Access denied message.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com