CSS Grid API support

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Campus

CSS Grid API support

Unread post by Campus » 2017-03-20, 20:33

Hi,

the next big CSS thing is the CSS Grid API which is currently adopted by all big browsers. Do you plan or even hhave an ETA for CSS Grid support in Pale Moon? I think a lot of sites will switch to this layout over the next months.

Best

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Re: CSS Grid API support

Unread post by Moonchild » 2017-03-20, 22:25

So flexbox wasn't good enough eh? XD
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Campus

Re: CSS Grid API support

Unread post by Campus » 2017-03-20, 22:29

I know.... I assume the new grid layout is more like the old table-layout and is better suited creating nice layouts in a grid.

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Re: CSS Grid API support

Unread post by Moonchild » 2017-03-20, 22:41

We already have CSS table layouts... Why is this suddenly needed? why would sites switch to it? It makes no sense. It wasn't important enough to implement in any browser for the past 6 years so there's no real reason why websites would suddenly want to swap to it.
is currently adopted by all big browsers.
If you discount Opera and Safari as "not big", maybe :P
Most of the keywords are only implemented by Chrome 57+ and FF 52+, according to MDN. IE and Edge use prefixed versions of some, not all, keywords... If websites don't want to cause web compat issues they will have to use more accessible ways of doing their layout than this completely atypical use of CSS.
It also redefines completely how CSS is normally used and parsed.

All in all it feels like "let's take this thing and make it the next new thing to advocate" instead of using existing technology that is still being implemented. Change for the sake of change still hasn't left us, apparently.

As for a timeline? None right now. I don't think our current team has room to plan this in.
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Campus

Re: CSS Grid API support

Unread post by Campus » 2017-03-20, 22:48

I think the new Grid standard will replace the flexbox usage in a lot of areas. It's just finalized and a lot of guides are popping up and most browsers will support it with their next releases. Personally I like this new approach much more than the old css table layout as it avoids the div mess and allows more use cases.

https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/01/css-grid
http://gridbyexample.com/

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Re: CSS Grid API support

Unread post by Moonchild » 2017-03-20, 23:07

Guides always pop up when a new method is being pushed. There's money to be made with guides, after all. Doesn't mean it's logical to switch to.
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Campus

Re: CSS Grid API support

Unread post by Campus » 2017-03-20, 23:23

I agree but that does not change the fact that all major browsers are going to support this and that the browser manufacturers worked together to create the standard and to avoid the confusion and problems that flexbox had initially. If the big 5 support this standard nicely and quick web developers will not care about PM and just use it from the beginning when developing new stuff. It would be great if PM could be a part in this.

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Re: CSS Grid API support

Unread post by Moonchild » 2017-03-20, 23:43

Campus wrote:I agree but that does not change the fact that all major browsers are going to support this and that the browser manufacturers worked together to create the standard and to avoid the confusion and problems that flexbox had initially. If the big 5 support this standard nicely and quick web developers will not care about PM and just use it from the beginning when developing new stuff. It would be great if PM could be a part in this.
I'm sorry but even that doesn't make any sense. Flexbox was implemented way after CSS grid drafts and specs were drawn up; nobody implemented flexboxes until css grid specifications already existed for several years-- if Grid was so much better than flexbox, flexbox should never have become a thing. No, this is something else altogether.
It's also not that browser manufacturers worked together on most of these things, but rather that browser parity was enforced by making implementations become a standard through influence, instead.

It would be great if we had a magic want to make implementations happen in no time, but that's not how programming works.
It would also be great if most of our current web standards weren't written by Google who have enough money to further their monoculture.
It would furthermore be great if people who have hammered on wanting to be able to use all these frameworks for the past 5 years would actually continue to do so, giving browser vendors a chance to actually at least have some semblance of a standard web platform, instead of jumping on the next "new" thing that is being toted as "the best ever" for the next 6 months.

If you think this is pivotal for Pale Moon to have, then by all means, help out -- rally people to our cause, have them look at CSS grid and offer patches to implement it.
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Tannin

Re: CSS Grid API support

Unread post by Tannin » 2017-04-08, 02:20

Please consider these factors:

(1) CSS Grid is inevitable. It is a vastly simpler, more practical way to layout websites than anything which has come before. (And yes, that includes Flexbox, which is not a particularly good way to lay out whole pages.)

(2) The fact that CSS Grid took six years to arrive is not a drawback, it is its great strength. Unlike any three other new CSS features we could name, it has been developed *properly*, not thrown together in ten minutes on the back of an envelope. With Grid, they took the time to get it right.

(3) The pent-up demand for something like Grid is enormous. For a good decade or more, web designers have been searching, searching for a layout tool that is as simple to master as - and works as effectively as - the old HTML table layout did in its time. Yes, tables were a shocking mess from a theoretical point of view, and were a nightmare to code and maintain for multi-page sites, but they were massively popular back then, and the ever-more complicated and obscure ways that we replaced them have been, in many ways, as bad as the disease. Look at the proliferation of web frameworks (many of them huge), or the plague of slow, obscure, and buggy Javascript layout tools. The existence of all those frameworks tells us something: that it is too damn difficult for the average user to code a website without crutches and add-ons and piling complication on complication. CSS Grid is going to go big, and the transition will be fast.

(4) CSS Grid isn't a complication, it's very significant simplification. Cleaner, simpler code has to make life easier for everyone.

(5) Consider this from the standpoint of someone coding a new site. CSS Grid can produce a good, working layout that functions properly with all devices, using a quarter of the code, and a fifth of the time. It already works on around 90% of all people's browsers. Why *wouldn't* you code with it? You'd be nuts not to. With Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera all supporting it now, and even Microsoft heading that way too, resistance is futile. Like it or not, Grid is the future. Please don't let Pale Moon fail through not supporting this excellent innovation - and be sure of this: any browser which doesn't support Grid will fail. Within a couple of years, CSS Grid support will be just a taken-for-granted part, essential to any browser.

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Re: CSS Grid API support

Unread post by Sajadi » 2017-04-08, 12:37

Tannin wrote:Please consider these factors....
The question is: WHO should implement that? ecmascripts and CSS related stuff is a a special kind of knowledge. This is nothing trivial which you can simply add or write into Pale Moon's code. This is nothing straight forward.

I suggest you find someone who has that knowledge for all the fresh Web-2.0 goodies who helps to implement that and forward that person to Moonchild to get in contact with, because right now there are enough open holes which have to be taken are of to keep the browser running in a good state.

Pale Moon is a fork. Which means it does not have the developer power of for example Apple or Microsoft to have a special kind of person for every single possible section of functionality which should be implemented. If you want special stuff like that to be part of Pale Moon, learn how to do it or find a person who is willing to volunteer and who is able to contribute that special kind of knowledge.

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Re: CSS Grid API support

Unread post by Moonchild » 2017-04-08, 13:00

As long as people keep pushing their new shinies, then of course it's going to be inevitable that people are going to use it.
Tannin wrote:For a good decade or more, web designers have been searching, searching for a layout tool that is as simple to master as - and works as effectively as - the old HTML table layout did in its time.
And here is the crux. For some reason people on the "web technology" end of the spectrum have made the decision they no longer wanted tables that already did all of this and still do all of this.
My argument is: "If you need table layouts that much, use a table already".
If you need a "flexible table", then that is what flexboxes with automatic rearranging of elements was created for. You don't NEED anything new to make all this happen, and CSS grid is in no significant way simpler than a table.

Why go ahead and throw all that out the window just so you can have CSS do it with a completely different, very unlike-css structure? CSS is supposed to be about style, not content layout. The problem is that people come up with these things because they want their favorite part of Web-3.0 to do everything instead of what it was designed for.

Of note, this push has been something very recent; the specs for CSS grid have been out there for a long time already (ever since someone decided they wanted to make CSS take over from HTML) and none of the browsers cared to implement it, and none of the web masters were so short-handed without it that they pushed to have it implemented, either. Where is this pressing need suddenly coming from, then?

As SaJaDi and myself already pointed out though: we don't have the capacity right now to make this happen. If you think the inevitability is there, and you want Pale Moon to continue to be useful in light of your opinion that "everyone will start using it overnight" then by all means, help us find the people who can help us with this. Bounties are always available for landmark features, as well, if implemented properly.
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muselato

Re: CSS Grid API support

Unread post by muselato » 2017-04-10, 09:27

I don't understand the answers to the first questioner's question. You don't want introduce support of the CSS Grid Layout into Pale Moon because final specification of it is not yet made by W3C or because you find it superfluous feature? Thanks.

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Re: CSS Grid API support

Unread post by Moonchild » 2017-04-10, 11:40

muselato wrote:I don't understand the answers to the first questioner's question. You don't want introduce support of the CSS Grid Layout into Pale Moon because final specification of it is not yet made by W3C or because you find it superfluous feature? Thanks.
Neither. Although I do find it superfluous and just part of the "we must make everything do everything" fallacy that's going on in the web world right now (not limited to CSS. See also procedural async constructs in JS (an event-driven language that doesn't need that), see also OO structures in PHP7, etc.)

I wouldn't mind introducing CSS Grid if it is in actual use in a significant way, beyond the sites using it because it's new (because that is the reactive way we have been developing Pale Moon) but until that point it's considered unnecessary. At that point, I hope there will be enough support for Pale Moon from the people who in the survey indicated they would get involved (where are you folks? I haven't seen the first one pop up on GitHub with patches...) to have the capacity to implement this. Right now, we can't fit it in our schedule even if we wanted to.

The W3C will likely make it final (over time - it's a slow process with them) because those specs are almost without fail written by browser implementers (Google specifically) and they will push until finalized, so the embraced and extended spec can extinguish the "competition" with superfluous features by pointing to "it's in the standards now"; and there won't be any input from independents about what ends up standardized, because only paying members can vote on anything with them.
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muselato

Re: CSS Grid API support

Unread post by muselato » 2017-04-11, 10:02

Hmm.
Except Pale Moon (Goanna), I have these browsers installed on Linux now: Firefox (Gecko), Chromium, Vivaldi, Brave (Blink), Gnome Web (WebKit), all in latest versions. If I make a test page with an element using display: grid and some children elements according to properties described in Mozilla Development Network, all my installed browsers can display the test page correctly, apart from Pale Moon.

So, web developers will only wait some time till older versions of browsers are in use but they see that the Grid Layout has support everywhere (also in Microsoft browsers, though with some prefixes and a bit different syntax) and the will inevitably start using it sooner or later. A matter of fact is not if it is in actual use but when it is in actual use. You will have to implement support of CCS Grid Layout anyway, so why to wait? When first pages stop being displayed correctly in Pale Moon due to the Grid Layout used and your users start grumble that other browsers display the pages correctly, will you hotfoot add support of the Grid? You can naturally think what you want about web standards and those who push them but you cannot have your private internet, tailored particularly to Pale Moon. If other browsers are capable to display/process something, you must follow them. Yes, if you have a browser with 60% of users you could dictate but you are not in such a position. Or do you want to disappoint users some day in the future? Most of them have no idea about web technologies, they just want web pages to be displayed correctly in a browser they choose.

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Re: CSS Grid API support

Unread post by Moonchild » 2017-04-11, 10:49

In favor of sounding like a broken record:
Patches welcome.
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PhilK

Re: CSS Grid API support

Unread post by PhilK » 2017-04-12, 10:03

muselato wrote:You will have to implement support of CCS Grid Layout anyway, so why to wait?
As has been pointed-out repeatedly now ITT, A) resources are limited and B) because of A, items with limited current usage in the field are not the highest priorities for programmer time.

muselato

Re: CSS Grid API support

Unread post by muselato » 2017-04-14, 20:34

OK. The answer could have been straightforward right at the beginning: "Presently, we haven't enough power to do it, you must wait".

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Re: CSS Grid API support

Unread post by Sajadi » 2017-04-14, 21:10

muselato wrote:OK. The answer could have been straightforward right at the beginning: "Presently, we haven't enough power to do it, you must wait".
The answer is more like features like that have to be delivered by people on their own with patches (---->patches welcome !) as that is a special territory which requires a lot of effort and specific knowledge to implement it , so if you want that kind of feature, find out how to deliver patches on your own of find someone who can help implement it. :wave:

For example you could take a look into coding boards or places like that and ask if someone could help. Just an example, where you could find such experts. You have to understand other big browser projects have a lot of that developers, Pale Moon has none who is a true expert in that specific field which is of course the disadvantage of a smaller fork project.

But for this Open Source is available... People can contribute or can be found and sent to get in contact with Moonchild to be able to contribute.

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