36022 - text-align:center and tables

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Core :: CSS Parsing and Computation, defect, P3)

Description

[ekrock's old account (dead)]

[ I'm forwarding this CSS bug report by [e-mail] from 
netscape.beta.feedback.pagelayout for analysis. The reporter's not registered 
in Bugzilla.]

Operating System: Windows 95
Language: English
Issue Summary: CSS:div.center{text-align:center;} does not work
Component: Page Layout
Doing What: Browing web pages
Severity: Something didn't work right
Can Reproduce: Yes, Always
Try this URL: http://
Issue Detail: center tag does not work correctly
**********************************
Using the center tag in CSS Class, it does not work

CSS-File:
*********
div.center { text-align:center; }

HTML-File:
**********
<div class="center">
Sample Text
</div>


Comment:
********
This works properly in Netscape 4.72 (also Opera 3.62 and IE 5.0)
But NOT in the new Netscape 6 Pre-Release 1 English
Build 6.0.15-nb1b.2000033112

Email Address: [e-mail]

Comment 1

[Sean Richardson]

Attachment: One-file testcase for div.center { text-align:center; }

Comment 2

[Sean Richardson]

Hmm, the one-file testcase works fine using the latest M16 build, an M15 build
from 2000-04-06, and the M14 release build. Could this only be a problem when
the CSS is in a seperate file?

Comment 3

[ekrock's old account (dead)]

Sounds like it as the reporter seems to have been using separate files.

Comment 4

[Armin Birrer]

Attachment: table centred with "div.center { text-align:center; }"

Comment 5

[Armin Birrer]

The bug only appears if the CSS TAG "div.center { text-align:center; }" is used 
to centre a table. It doesn't matter whether the CSS is in a seperate file or 
not.

Comment 6

[Richard Zach]

Confirming this on Linux build 2000.04.16.06.  text-align: center, according to
the CSS2 spec, should center inline content of the DIV.  Maybe a TABLE isn't
inline content?  However, changing the TABLE to <TABLE style="display:
inline-table">, which presumably makes it into inline content, also doesn't make
the table centered.

Comment 7

[Richard Zach]

CC to reporter; changing summary.

Comment 8

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

Mozilla doesn't support inline-table.  text-align should not center blocks. 
However, it might do so in quirks mode (I think actually buster changed it to do
it in all cases, which is wrong...).

Comment 9

[Hugh Kennedy]

this looks like a dup of bug 23116.

am i missing a subtle difference here?

Comment 10

[Richard Zach]

Well, on yesterday's build text-align: center makes tables centered even in
strict mode.  I'll reassign this to buster as per dbaron's comments.  To
summarize what this bug is about: text-align: center should not (as per spec)
center a table in strict mode (it does right now).  Should it center tables in
compatibility mode?

Comment 11

[Richard Zach]

Attachment: testcase strict mode

Comment 12

[Richard Zach]

Attachment: testcase compatibility mode

Comment 13

[Masatoshi Kimura [:emk]]

Compatibility mode detection is broken now. See bug 36872.
But even if using the viewer, table with 'text-align: center' is centerd. It 
should not be centered per spec.

Comment 14

[Masatoshi Kimura [:emk]]

Bug 36872 is fixed, but table is still centered.

Comment 15

[buster]

fixed.  compatibility mode still centers the table, but strict mode does not

Comment 16

[Christine Hoffman]

Using the following builds:

Windows: 08_09_09_m18
Mac: 08_08_20_m18
Linux: 08_10_08_m18

reopening bug. Using the testcases provided, 'strict' mode correctly DOES NOT 
center top table. However, in 'transitional' or 'quirk' mode, the beahvior is 
the same - top table is not centered. I understood from this bug that in 'quirk' 
mode 'text-align: center' should center the block as well as the text. 

Comment 17

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

I actually changed this back when I fixed some other centering bugs.  Nav4's
behavior was incorrect according to the CSS spec.  If you can point to more than
one or two real sites that depend on that behavior I'm willing to change it back
for quirks mode, but otherwise I think this bug should be resolved as INVALID. 
I don't think there's a need to copy Nav4's bugs just because one person filed
abug saying they should be copied.

I think very few sites use the CSS 'text-align: center' for centering tables
because HTML's CENTER element or <DIV ALIGN=CENTER> or <TABLE ALIGN=CENTER> are
more reliable across browsers than CSS.

Comment 18

[buster]

I agree with David's last comment.  Our quirks mode is intended to replicate
existing Nav4 behavior in HTML markup (and sometimes IE behavior where Nav is
just completely broken).  It is absolutely not intended to mimic legacy behavior
for CSS.  So it's the right decision to make <CENTER> behavior like Nav4 in
quirks mode, because it's a common idiom.  But it doesn't make much sense to
intentionally break CSS in quirks mode for an idiom that isn't in common usage.

I'm marking this bug Fixed again, to indicate that the portion of the bug report
that ought to be fixed has been fixed.

Comment 19

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

Netscape's standard compliance QA team reorganised itself once again, so taking 
remaining non-tables style bugs. Sorry about the spam. I tried to get this done 
directly at the database level, but apparently that is "not easy because of the 
shadow db", "plus it screws up the audit trail", so no can do...

Comment 20

[Madhur Bhatia]

v