214004 - ::first-letter isn't applied if first letter is inside a child block

Status: NEW

(Core :: Layout: Block and Inline, defect)

Description

[Anne (:annevk)]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.5b) Gecko/20030726
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.5b) Gecko/20030726

This bug is spawned off from http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=212145.
The generated content is now applied, but ::first-letter isn't applied.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Visit http://www.annevankesteren.nl/css/testcase/generated_content.html
2. The bold generated content should have a capitalized first letter.

Actual Results:  
The first letter of the bold generated content wasn't capitalized.

Expected Results:  
Capitalize the first letter

Related to http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=212145

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Attachment: Testcase

This seems like an issue with nested blocks, not with generated content...

Comment 2

[Anne (:annevk)]

Not sure if this can help, but Opera 6.06 applies this correct.

Comment 3

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Anne, the question here is what "correct" is.  The CSS spec is not clear on
whether the ::first-letter applies through block children.

Comment 4

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

It does. The next draft of CSS2.1 will contain explicit text for this. It'll be
out Real Soon Now.

Comment 5

[Anne (:annevk)]

Besided that, it is a "pseudo element" and a "element" may be styled either
inline or block if I am correct.

Comment 6

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

OK.  Taking bug, in that case.  This should not be that hard to fix, I _think_
(though there may be some issues with nested blocks each of which has a
first-letter set on it).

Anne, I'm not sure what you're getting at in comment 5.

Comment 7

[Anne (:annevk)]

Sorry for being unclear in comment 5. What I meant to say is that ::before is a
pseudo-element. A pseudo-element/element may be styled using the display
property. This way you can alter a pseudo-element from inline to block-level and
from block-level to inline.

Second thing is that the pseudo-element first-letter applies on the first letter
of generated content (e.g. ::before). If you combine this with the information
in the previous paragraph you understand why ::first-letter should apply on:

<div>
 <div>aaa</div>
</div>

I hope this is a better explanation.

Comment 8

[Anne (:annevk)]

I'm not sure if bug 219770 is the same bug. I don't know _anything_ on the way
Mozilla works. Could someone take a look at it?

Comment 9

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

CSS2.1 is totally redefining how first-letter and first-line work, so we're
probably going to have to totally rewrite all the relevant code....

Comment 10

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

not so much "redefining" as "defining", but yeah.

Original testcase is now 404:
   http://www.annevankesteren.nl/css/testcase/generated_content.html

Attached testcase (attachment 128595 [details]), while not guidelines-compliant, is valid, 
in that the first "a" should match the grandparent node's :first-letter pseudo.

Comment 11

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Not going to get to this any reasonable time.

Comment 12

[Jurriaan Ruitenberg]

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/selector.html seems to be pretty clear about it..
(despite a grammar issue ;)) 

"Note that the :first-letter pseudo-element tags abut the content (i.e., the
initial character), while the :first-line pseudo-element start tag is inserted
right after the start tag of the element to which it is attached."

the fictional html sequence they use for this:

<P>
<SPAN>
<P:first-letter>
T
</P:first-letter>he first
</SPAN> 
few words of an article in the Economist.
</P>

Comment 13

[Anne (:annevk)]

Please read and quote from CSS 2.1; the specification Mozilla is going to follow.

Comment 15

[Gérard Talbot]

Submitted related test to CSS 2.1 test suite:

CSS Test: First-letter - in-flow block descendant that contains text
http://test.csswg.org/suites/css2.1/nightly-unstable/html4/first-letter-selector-028.htm

Gérard

Comment 18

[Gérard Talbot]

CSS Test: First-letter - in-flow block descendant that contains text
http://wpt.live/css/CSS2/selectors/first-letter-selector-028.xht

Comment 19

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The severity field for this bug is relatively low, S3. However, the bug has 3 duplicates.
:jfkthame, could you consider increasing the bug severity?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 20

[BugBot (nomail) [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The last needinfo from me was triggered in error by recent activity on the bug. I'm clearing the needinfo since this is a very old bug and I don't know if it's still relevant.