88988 - ::each-line pseudo-element (::line-marker, ::nth-line())

Status: NEW

(Core :: CSS Parsing and Computation, enhancement, P4)

Description

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

For Mailnews, we need a way to insert chars/text in front of each floating line.

Let's say, I have a <p> with 460 chars of text as context. It will be wrapped
to, say, 5 lines on the screen, to fit the window width. Now, I want to add a
char, e.g. ">", in front of each of these lines.

The last paragrapph with this style would look like this:

> Let's say, I have a <p> with 460 chars of text as context. It will be wrapped
> to, say, 5 lines on the screen, to fit the window width. Now, I want to add a
> char, e.g. ">", in front of each of these lines.

I could use a rule like
blockquote[type=cite]:before-each-line {content: ">";}
(IIRC the syntax).

Imagine as application to use traditional plaintext quote style (">") to mark
HTML quotes (<blockquote type=cite>, usually displayed as blue bar at the left).
In Mailnews, we need this bug to display format=flowed quotes with plaintext
quote style (bug 88986).

There was a discussion about this on .mail-news and .css around Jan 2001.

Of course, a complementary :after-each-line makes sense.

Comment 1

[Garth Wallace]

It might make more sense to have a :-moz-each-line pseudo-element. That way you 
could have :-moz-each-line:before, :-moz-each-line:after, :-moz-each-line:first-
letter, etc. instead of a new pseudo-element for each.

Comment 2

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

It's a valid RFE, but I don't know if we want to fix it or not in the style
system...

Comment 3

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-5, no longer working on Mozilla)]

Assigning pierre's remaining Style System-related bugs to myself.

Comment 4

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Hixie, there's no clean way to do this in Mailnews, if you mean that. At least I
know none.

Comment 5

[Lea Verou]

How about now, 9 years later with a ::line-marker pseudo-element conveniently in the spec? :)