Title: CSS Intrinsic & Extrinsic Sizing Module Level 4
Shortname: css-sizing
Level: 4
Status: ED
Warning: not ready
Work Status: Exploring
Group: csswg
ED: https://drafts.csswg.org/css-sizing
TR: https://www.w3.org/TR/css-sizing/
Editor: Tab Atkins, Google, http://xanthir.com/contact/, w3cid 42199
Editor: Elika J. Etemad / fantasai, Invited Expert, http://fantasai.inkedblade.net/contact, w3cid 35400
Previous version: https://www.w3.org/TR/2012/WD-css3-sizing-20120927/
Abstract: This is a delta spec over CSS Sizing Level 3.
Ignored Terms: block-level box

spec:css-display-3; type:dfn; text:box
spec:css2; type: property
	text: min-width
	text: min-height
	text: max-width
	text: max-height

Introduction

This section is not normative.

CSS layout has several different concepts of automatic sizing that are used in various layout calculations. This section defines some more precise terminology to help connect the layout behaviors of this spec to the calculations used in other modules, and some new keywords for the 'width' and 'height' properties to allow authors to assign elements the dimensions resulting from these size calculations.

Module interactions

This module extends the 'width', 'height', 'min-width', 'min-height', 'max-width', 'max-height', and 'column-width' features defined in [[!CSS2]] chapter 10 and in [[!CSS3COL]]

Values

This specification follows the CSS property definition conventions from [[!CSS2]]. Value types not defined in this specification are defined in CSS Values & Units [[!CSS-VALUES-3]]. Other CSS modules may expand the definitions of these value types. In addition to the property-specific values listed in their definitions, all properties defined in this specification also accept the CSS-wide keywords keywords as their property value. For readability they have not been repeated explicitly.

Terminology

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Auto Box Sizes

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Intrinsic Size Contributions

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Intrinsic Size Constraints

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New Sizing Keywords

New Keywords for 'width' and 'height'

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Containing Floats

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Column Sizing Keywords

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Intrinsic Size Determination

Intrinsic sizing determines sizes based on the contents of an element, without regard for its context.

Intrinsic Sizes of Replaced Elements

For replaced elements, the min-content size and max-content size are equivalent and correspond to the appropriate dimension of the concrete object size returned by the default sizing algorithm [[!CSS3-IMAGES]] of the element, calculated with an unconstrained specified size. The min-content contribution and max-content contribution in each axis is the element's specified outer size in that axis, if definite; otherwise, they are the min-content size, as specified above, plus the element's margin/border/padding in that axis, clamped by the element's min and max size properties in that axis.

Intrinsic Sizes of Non-Replaced Inlines

The min-content inline size of an inline box is the length of the largest unbreakable sequence of inline content. The min-content inline-size contribution of an inline box is its min-content inline size, plus any inline-axis margin, border, and padding adjacent to that sequence.

The max-content inline size of an inline box is the length of the largest sequence of inline content on a single line when only forced line breaks are taken. The max-content inline-size contribution of an inline box is its max-content inline size, plus any inline-axis margin, border, and padding adjacent to that sequence.

The min-content block size, max-content block size, min-content block-size contribution, and max-content block-size contribution of an inline box are the distance from the head edge of the first line box to the foot edge of the last line box on which the inline appears.

Intrinsic Sizes of Non-Replaced Blocks

The min-content inline size of a block container box is the largest min-content inline-size contribution of its in-flow or floated children.

The max-content inline size of a block container box is the inline-size of the box after layout, if all children are sized under a max-content constraint.

If the computed inline-size of a block-level box is ''width/min-content'', ''width/max-content'', or a definite size, its min-content inline-size contribution is that size plus any inline-axis margin, border, and padding. Otherwise, if the computed inline-size of the block is ''width/fit-content'', ''width/auto'', or ''width/stretch'', its min-content inline-size contribution is its min-content inline size plus any inline-axis margin, border, and padding.

If the computed inline-size of a block-level box is ''width/min-content'', ''width/max-content'', or a definite size, its max-content inline-size contribution is that size plus any inline-axis margin, border, and padding. Otherwise, if the computed inline-size of the block is ''width/fit-content'', ''width/auto'', or ''width/stretch'', its max-content inline-size contribution is its max-content inline size plus any inline-axis margin, border, and padding.

The min-content block size and max-content block size of a block container box is the content block-size as defined (for horizontal writing modes) in CSS2.1§10.6.3 and CSS2.1§17.5.3 for elements with ''height: auto'', and analogously for vertical writing modes.

The min-content block-size contribution and max-content block-size contribution of a block-level box is the block-size of the block after layout, plus any block-axis margin, border, and padding. Issue: Need to handle floats. See Greg's issue and dbaron's response.

Intrinsic Sizes in Table Layout

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Intrinsic Sizes in Multi-column Layout

Min-content Sizes in Multi-column Layout

The min-content inline size of a multi-column container with a computed 'column-width' not ''column-width/auto'' is the smaller of its 'column-width' and the largest min-content inline-size contribution of its contents.

The min-content inline size of a multi-column container with a computed 'column-width' of ''column-width/auto'' is the largest min-content inline-size contribution of its contents multiplied by its 'column-count' (treating ''column-count/auto'' as ''1''), plus its 'column-gap' multiplied by 'column-count' minus 1.

Max-content Sizes in Unconstrained-height Multi-column Layout

The max-content inline size of a multi-column container with unrestrained column heights and a computed 'column-count' not ''column-count/auto'' is its 'column-count' multiplied by the larger of its 'column-width' (treating ''column-width/auto'' as zero) and the largest min-content inline-size contribution of its contents, plus its 'column-gap' multiplied by 'column-count' minus 1.

Note that the contents of the multi-column container can still grow to be wider and shorter if the resulting column width is still smaller than the largest max-content inline-size contribution of its contents.

The max-content inline size of a multi-column container with unrestrained column heights and a computed 'column-count' of ''column-count/auto'' is its 'column-width' multiplied by the number of columns obtained by taking all allowed column breaks [[CSS3-BREAK]], plus its 'column-gap' multiplied by that same number of columns minus 1.

Max-content Sizes in Constrained-height Multi-column Layout

The max-content inline size of a multi-column container with restrained-height columns (i.e. a specified 'height' or 'max-height', or whichever properties map to the block size of the element) is the inline size that would exactly include all of its columns. It may be approximated by:

Laying out the element with column-spanning elements given ''display: none'', and taking a inline-size that includes all the columns.
Laying out all of the column-spanning elements into that resulting inline-size, and taking the resulting block-size.
Subtracting that resulting block-size from the specified restraint, laying out the element without column-spanning elements again into this adjusted block-size, and taking the inline-size of all its columns as its max-content inline size.

or by some more accurate method.

This approximation can result in some slack, but avoids overflow in the most common cases, where the balanced height of the columns above spanning elements are approximately equal.

In the common case of no column-spanning elements, this approximation collapses to simply doing a layout, and measuring the resulting columns.

Extrinsic Size Determination

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Stretch-fit Sizing

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Contain-fit Sizing: stretching while maintaining an aspect ratio

Contain-fit sizing essentially applies stretch-fit sizing, but reduces the size of the box in one axis to maintain the box’s intrinsic aspect ratio, similar to the ''contain'' keyword of the 'object-fit' and 'background-size' properties. First, a target rectangle is determined:

The initial target rectangle is the size of the box’s containing block, with any indefinite size assumed as infinity. If both dimensions are indefinite, the initial target rectangle is set to match the outer edges of the box were it stretch-fit sized.
Next, if the box has a non-''max-width/none'' 'max-width' or 'max-height', the target rectangle is clamped in the affected dimension to less than or equal to the “maximum size” of the box’s margin box, i.e. the size its margin box would be if the box was sized at its max-width/height. (Note that, consistent with normal box-sizing rules, this “maximum size” is floored by the effects of the box’s 'min-width'/'min-height'.)
Last, the target rectangle is reduced in one dimension by the minimum necessary for it to match the box's intrinsic aspect ratio.

The contain-fit size in each dimension is the size that would result from stretch-fitting into the target rectangle. Issue: Copy whatever stretch-fit ends up doing wrt margin collapsing. Issue: If there is a minimum size in one dimension that would cause overflow of the target rectangle if the aspect ratio were honored, do we honor the aspect ratio or skew the image? If the former, we need a step similar to #2 that applies the relevant minimums.

Percentage Sizing

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Changes

Changes since the September 2012 Working Draft include:

Changed fill keyword to stretch-fit.
Hooked up intrinsic sizes of replaced elements to the default sizing algorithm in [[!CSS3-IMAGES]].
Specified that extrinsic sizing treates ''margin/auto'' margins as zero.
Clarified definition of available space.
Specified that percentages resolved against an intrinsic size of the parent computes falls back to auto sizing.
Fixed bad wording wrt containing blocks in stretch-fit inline size definition, and specified that it is calculated after margin collapsing.
Specified that an absolutely-positioned box's containing block is always considered definite.
Improved section on intrinsic sizing of multi-column containers.
Cleaned up some terminology (“min-size” to “min-content size”, “measure” to “inline-size, “extent” to “block-size”).

Acknowledgments

Special thanks go to Aaron Gustafson, L. David Baron for their contributions to this module.

Privacy and Security Considerations

This specification introduces no new privacy or security considerations.