CSS Regions backstories: Difference between revisions
(Created page with "(to be continued) ------------------------------------ In 2011, CSS Regions emerged in a proposal written by W3C member Adobe ["to support sophisticated, magazine-style, layouts using CSS"](https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2011Mar/0172.html), which has been translated into a [CSS Regions Module Level 1](https://www.w3.org/TR/css-regions-1/) working draft. At the same time, also Apple worked on similar ideas, which they called [slots](https://lists.w3.org/...") |
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In 2011, CSS Regions emerged in a proposal written by W3C member Adobe [ | In 2011, CSS Regions emerged in a proposal written by W3C member Adobe [https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2011Mar/0172.html “to support sophisticated, magazine-style, layouts using CSS”], which has been translated into a [https://www.w3.org/TR/css-regions-1/ CSS Regions Module Level 1] working draft. At the same time, also Apple worked on similar ideas, which they called [https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2011Mar/0189.html slots], but these were never further implemented into a CSS standard. | ||
Ten years have passed since the CSS Regions started to disappear from Chromium. Ten years might not sound like a long time, but it is when you think about the speed in which web technologies change and the short period of time in which this CSS standard was implemented by (some) browsers. [Chrome and Chromium for example, only partially supported CSS Regions in their releases in 2011 and 2012, with an extension to 2014 if you enabled the | Ten years have passed since the CSS Regions started to disappear from Chromium. Ten years might not sound like a long time, but it is when you think about the speed in which web technologies change and the short period of time in which this CSS standard was implemented by (some) browsers. [https://caniuse.com/?search=css-regions Chrome and Chromium for example, only partially supported CSS Regions in their releases in 2011 and 2012, with an extension to 2014 if you enabled the ''Webkit Experimental Features''.] Ever since CSS Regions have been absent in the bigger so-called ''modern'' or ''updated'' browsers that run on Linux operation systems. | ||
In 2013, OSP started to use the CSS Regions to flow text on a page. CSS Regions are basically a tool to fragment text into pages, columns or other boxes. It creates the possibility to render a HTML document into pages, but it also adds an increasing amount of flexibility to layout making, allowing text and images to be placed in more complex ways on a page and in parallel of each other. | In 2013, OSP started to use the CSS Regions to flow text on a page. CSS Regions are basically a tool to fragment text into pages, columns or other boxes. It creates the possibility to render a HTML document into pages, but it also adds an increasing amount of flexibility to layout making, allowing text and images to be placed in more complex ways on a page and in parallel of each other. | ||
OSP has been working with this never officially supported CSS standard ever since. The CSS Regions are part of a larger toolset to produce printed matter using the web, which includes the yearly programme booklets for the [ | OSP has been working with this never officially supported CSS standard ever since. The CSS Regions are part of a larger toolset to produce printed matter using the web, which includes the yearly programme booklets for the [https://2020-21.balsamine.be/ Balsamine theater] between 2011 and 2021, and the quarterly investigative journalism magazine [https://medor.coop/ Médor] since 2015 until today, amongst a whole range of other projects. | ||
The choice to stay firm and to not let go of the CSS Regions, forced OSP to look for workarounds. Working around the changes that were made to CSS standards in general and to browsers in particular. They found a way to configure and run a very minimal browser that runs on a browser engine that still supports CSS Regions: [ | The choice to stay firm and to not let go of the CSS Regions, forced OSP to look for workarounds. Working around the changes that were made to CSS standards in general and to browsers in particular. They found a way to configure and run a very minimal browser that runs on a browser engine that still supports CSS Regions: [http://osp.kitchen/tools/ospkit/ OSPKit]. | ||
OSPKit runs on a specific version of WebKit released in 2016, Qt-WebKit 5.212, which has two big concequences. First, all HTML, CSS and Javascript versions that are used in OSPKit are so-called | OSPKit runs on a specific version of WebKit released in 2016, Qt-WebKit 5.212, which has two big concequences. First, all HTML, CSS and Javascript versions that are used in OSPKit are so-called “outdated” and stuck in the year 2016. And second, WebKit also dropped support for CSS Regions since version 5.6 [TBC!], which means that once Qt-WebKit will be further developed and not available anymore in OS package managers, that it will be increasingly difficult to install OSPKit on so-called ''modern'' and ''updated'' operating systems. | ||
<!-- Since the early days in 2013, when OSP started exploring HTML and CSS as tools for making for print layouts, CSS Regions have been around for page and text fragmentation. Today, 8 years later, CSS Regions are still actively used to make Médor, but the situation radically changed. Different workarounds and software patches were needed to make sure that CSS Regions could still be used to make the layout of the magazine. | |||
What happened? The browser Chromium, the only suitable browser on Linux machines supporting CSS Regions, decided to switch its browser engine –from WebKit to Blink– and dropped its support for CSS Regions. | |||
This caused panick. To be able to work with CSS Regions, OSP looked for workarounds. And after a few different attempts, they initiated OSPKit. A simplified browser that runs on a version of WebKit released in 2016, with the concequence that all HTML, CSS and Javascript versions that are used in OSPKit are so-called "outdated" and stuck in that year. More details can be found in the blog post [here](/css-regions.html). | |||
--> | |||
<!-- As with any particular way of working, also web-to-print comes with its possible constraints and constraint-based possibilities. | |||
An important software bottleneck in this practice is the browser, which comes with many built-in ideas, legacies, values and priorities. Something that has a direct impact on web-to-print practices is, for example, the limited understanding of a browser regarding what a document can be: modern browsers can only render a web page as a single flow document. When you press CTRL+P to print a web page, the browser assumes the document that you would like to print only contains one running text. And on top of that, it also assumes that this text is written in only one language. This might sound innocent, but it actually blocks a whole range of possibilities when it comes to layout making. Possibilities which have been ubiquitous on in the tradition of book making practices, where it has been very common to let multiple types of content run across pages in parallel. | |||
--> | |||
[[Category:Shoulder-to-shoulder]] | |||
Latest revision as of 13:41, 9 November 2023
(to be continued)
In 2011, CSS Regions emerged in a proposal written by W3C member Adobe “to support sophisticated, magazine-style, layouts using CSS”, which has been translated into a CSS Regions Module Level 1 working draft. At the same time, also Apple worked on similar ideas, which they called slots, but these were never further implemented into a CSS standard.
Ten years have passed since the CSS Regions started to disappear from Chromium. Ten years might not sound like a long time, but it is when you think about the speed in which web technologies change and the short period of time in which this CSS standard was implemented by (some) browsers. Chrome and Chromium for example, only partially supported CSS Regions in their releases in 2011 and 2012, with an extension to 2014 if you enabled the Webkit Experimental Features. Ever since CSS Regions have been absent in the bigger so-called modern or updated browsers that run on Linux operation systems.
In 2013, OSP started to use the CSS Regions to flow text on a page. CSS Regions are basically a tool to fragment text into pages, columns or other boxes. It creates the possibility to render a HTML document into pages, but it also adds an increasing amount of flexibility to layout making, allowing text and images to be placed in more complex ways on a page and in parallel of each other.
OSP has been working with this never officially supported CSS standard ever since. The CSS Regions are part of a larger toolset to produce printed matter using the web, which includes the yearly programme booklets for the Balsamine theater between 2011 and 2021, and the quarterly investigative journalism magazine Médor since 2015 until today, amongst a whole range of other projects.
The choice to stay firm and to not let go of the CSS Regions, forced OSP to look for workarounds. Working around the changes that were made to CSS standards in general and to browsers in particular. They found a way to configure and run a very minimal browser that runs on a browser engine that still supports CSS Regions: OSPKit.
OSPKit runs on a specific version of WebKit released in 2016, Qt-WebKit 5.212, which has two big concequences. First, all HTML, CSS and Javascript versions that are used in OSPKit are so-called “outdated” and stuck in the year 2016. And second, WebKit also dropped support for CSS Regions since version 5.6 [TBC!], which means that once Qt-WebKit will be further developed and not available anymore in OS package managers, that it will be increasingly difficult to install OSPKit on so-called modern and updated operating systems.