Post #1130970
2026-04-10 15:44 UTC
Sometimes I'm tracking down a questions in the CSS spec, and I land on containing blocks, with my favorite line of spec poetry:
"Notably, a containing block is not a box (it is a rectangle)"
Yes. That's the sort of distinction I'm here for.
https://drafts.csswg.org/css-display-4/#containing-block
Replies (1)
-
@AmeliaBR@front-end.social 2026-04-10 20:23
@mia I read that as an ordinary human being, where a box is 3D and a rectangle is 2D. But then my CSS nerd brain clicked on, and I realized that that is of course not it, but "box" does have a lot of extra dimensions to it nonetheless. And now I've been reading the definitions in that spec & I'm mad that "box" is being used for "complete layout box associated with an element or pseudo-element" but also for "individual rectangles associated with a layout box" like content box, border box, etc.