6320 - bug with CSS %

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Core :: Layout, defect, P3)

Description

[webmas7]

stylesheet located at www.cedarnet.org/demo/v5/standard.css

The only percentage used in the stylesheet renders incorrectly. Works with Nav4
& IE5.

Percentage used for positioning of layer from top as shown here:

.footerbox
{
	position: absolute;
	height: auto;
	width: 80px;
	top: 98%;
	left: 0px;
	z-index: 4;

Comment 1

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-4, no longer working on Mozilla)]

CSS2, section 9.3.2
( http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/visuren.html#position-props ) says:

<percentage>
The offset is a percentage of the containing block's width (for 'left'
or 'right') or height (for 'top' and 'bottom'). For 'top' and 'bottom', if the
height of the containing block is not specified explicitly (i.e., it depends on
content height), the percentage value is interpreted like 'auto'.

Thus I think Mozilla is correct.  If you want positioning relative to the
viewport (which is how it seems) then you might want to use position:fixed.

Comment 2

[webmas7]

Altering the stylesheet with a defined height for .footerbox makes no
difference.

I am confused when you say use position:fixed. I have not seen "fixed" before,
only "static, absolute, relative"

The code presented works in the older browsers of both sorts, I believe this is
a bug that needs to be fixed for the sake of backward compatibility if it does
not break the standard by doing so.

Comment 3

[Peter Linss]

It's not .footerbox that needs a defined height, it's the "containing block"
that needs it.

Nav 4.5's behavior on this page is just plain wrong (top is based on window
width, not height) and we'd break conformance with the CSS spec if we tried to
mimic it.