[css-inline-3] Improve list of properties applying to initial letters

[fantasai]

The list of properties that apply to initial letters seems unnecessarily restrictive. E.g. fill/stroke should apply. What restrictions are actually necessary?

[fantasai]

@dauwhe and I are thinking to say that any properties that apply to an inline box also apply to an initial letter, except for vertical-align and friends.

[frivoal]

You need to exclude font-size as well:

• We're calculating the size of the initial letter differently anyway
• That's what safari does (except for a bug where font-size:0 makes the whole initial letter disappear)
• It's useful to set the font-size to a large value, to be used as a fallback if the initial-letter property is not supported, without having that interfere somehow with the initial-letter

[fantasai]

'font-size' affects how ems are calculated, though, so it has to apply. We don't want to change the length computation rules for initial letters.

[emilio]

Why does forbidding specifying font-size in ::initial-letter require changing length computation rules? I'd assume inheritance would work normally. Anyway no big deal, was just curious.

[frivoal]

I guess it can be described as applying, then we add a note clarifying that it has no effect on the sizing of the initial letter itself, only on font-relative length units.

[css-meeting-bot]

The Working Group just discussed Properties that apply to initial-letter, and agreed to the following:

• RESOLVED: approve the edit

The full IRC log of that discussion

<fantasai> Topic: Properties that apply to initial-letter
<fantasai> github: https://github.com//issues/2700
<fantasai> See https://drafts.csswg.org/css-inline-3/#initial-letter-properties
<fantasai> “All properties that apply to an inline box also apply to an initial letter (unless it is an atomic inline, in which case the set of properties that apply to an atomic inline apply) except for vertical-align and its sub-properties, font-size, and line-height. Additionally, all of the sizing properties and box-sizing also apply to initial letters.”
<frremy> fantasai: before was a whitelist, current spec text is more general
<frremy> fantasai: all props except vertical-align, font-size and line-height
<frremy> dbaron: so this includes mpb?
<frremy> fantasai: yes
<frremy> dauwhe: yes
<frremy> florian: so we are just resolving to approve the edit?
<frremy> fantasai: yes
<tantek> is outline in that list
<tantek> ?
<frremy> TabAtkins: our only objection is that this is one more list to maintain
<fantasai> for reference, the old section : https://www.w3.org/TR/2016/WD-css-inline-3-20160524/#initial-letter-properties
<frremy> TabAtkins: and we already keep forgetting to do this for first-letter and first-line
<frremy> TabAtkins: problem happens whether you black list of white list
<frremy> TabAtkins: but the failure mode and the fixed mode of starting from an allow list is better
<frremy> fantasai: we came to the opposite conclusion because most things should apply
<frremy> fantasai: we don't except many new exceptions
<frremy> fantasai: but we expect most things to be useful
<frremy> dauwhe: the blacklist is useful because it is short and enables to grasp the scope of the feature
<frremy> florian: would like a note that explains the principle, so that new properties would be able to be categorized by this rule even if we forget to add them
<frremy> fantasai: but they wouldn't be able to apply because the algorithms don't take them in consideration
<frremy> florian: that was just a proposal, but I'm fine as-is
<frremy> Rossen: so, can we resolve on the blacklist with three properties then?
<frremy> TabAtkins: no objection
<frremy> dbaron: sizing properties apply too?
<frremy> fantasai: this is the next issue
<frremy> dbaron: ok
<frremy> RESOLVED: approve the edit