Re: [csswg-drafts] [css-grid-3] Masonry Switch Syntax (#12022)

**Survey Results Continued...**

Points raised via commentary wrt specific words:
- Against “stacking”:
    - Stacking is about the z dimension.
    - It is a name already used for non-grid layouts.
    - Feels like it has a preferred orientation.
- Against “packing”:
    - Already used to describe existing grid concept of  `dense` packing (and the proposed `item-pack` property).
    - Sounds like a densely filled normal grid, and not a Pinterest-style display.
    - Already have a Packery layout system that's not this.
- Against “compact”:
    - Confusing considering the “dense” concept in CSS Grid.
    - Too ambiguous.
- For “collapse(d)”:
    - Several felt this was an intuitive description of what happens to a grid. “Speaks best to what a masonry layout is — a grid, but with its empty space collapsed ... ‘Compact’ is a close second in that regard, but doesn't have quite the same specificity.” 
- Against “collapse(d)”:
    - Already used for margin collapsing, border collapsing, etc.
    - “May be confused with the general idea of collapsing ... used broadly to talk about some UI being hidden and represented by a reduced set of UI, such as a collapsed selector, or a collapsible region.”
    - “Collapsed feels vaguely accordion/verb-esque — like I can open and close it.”
- For “lanes”:
    - “Lanes is good and punchy.”
    - It's evocative: “I think I can imagine myself remembering "display: grid-lanes" even though its descriptive, I can apply my OWN metaphor of like, the frogger highway. lol” “ What this construct represents for me is the orientation in lanes, columns or - as some call it - a stack.”
- Against “lanes”:
    - “A bit too close to ‘track’.”
    - “Grid lanes looks like a methaphor to me, so it's strange to see it in the list.”
    - “‘lane’ is an unusual term in this context”
- “Has anyone suggested 'gridlock'? Look at a top down view of the freeway in bumper-to-bumper traffic.”

Points raised via commentary wrt patterns:
- Wrt ordering:
    - “Generally prefer ‘adjective’-grid naming pattern."
    - Putting `grid-` first “feels more idiomatic than the reverse”, “better signifies the mental model of grid as the base because we’re borrowing other grid-* properties”; “should definitely start with grid.”
- Against two keywords:
    - It's confusing unless there is an expectation of adding the keyword to all sorts of other display types.
    - Modifiers/space separated terms could be confusing, hard to remember and not play well with ide autocomplete. 
- “Maybe have a sub-display type…  This would allow for grid as the foundation/core then a sub-display type could offer more options”
- “Somewhat against `grid-collapse`, as the noun + verb combination doesn't sound right.”
- Avoid focusing on density: “The density of the grid doesn't seem essential to me, so I'd prefer not using one of the names that evoke that (packed, compact…)”; “Packed, collapsed, and compact all feel too conceptually similar to dense, which is already used in a grid context.”
- “I prefer terms like masonry or waterfall over all of these options, if I'm being honest.”
- “English is not my first language and the problem I see with the most of the proposed terms is that they are so semantically broad / have so many distinct meanings, that for a non-native speaker they effectively mean nothing. The word "lane" at least provides a clearer visual metaphor than things like "pack" or "stack"”

Of course multiple people expressed a strong preference for `masonry` or `grid-masonry`. And some comments were like "just ship it already" while others were like "thanks for taking the time to get it right".


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Received on Wednesday, 5 November 2025 04:47:11 UTC