====== Rename Block-relative Logical Directions (Before/After) ======

---- dataentry  ----
Spec_tags     : ALL
Owner_tags    : fantasai #Who's driving the discussion?
Status_tags   : Closed #[ Open | Closed | Pending ] [, Urgent]?
Added_dt      : 2012-05-28 #Date added as WG discussion request
Action        : Discuss and approve?
Issue_urls    : http://www.w3.org/mid/4FA0248F.7010406@inkedblade.net
Proposal_urls : http://www.w3.org/mid/E3737B6E-B4C7-4226-A5F9-54AC1FF9B94E@crissov.de
Agenda_urls   :  #If this is part of an ordered series of related topics, e.g. LC issues, use this to link to the supertopic agenda
----

=== Background ===

Like XSL:FO, CSS uses the terms ''start'' and ''end'' to distinguish the two logical inline-axis directions. Lacking any better proposals, we've been using XSL:FO's ''before''/''after'' to distinguish the two logical block-axis directions. People generally aren't thrilled with these terms: they are not distinct, and the two pairs are therefore confusable. But there haven't been any compelling alternatives... until now.

=== Problem Statement ===

Rename the terms we are using for the two logical block-axis directions,, ''before''/''after'', to make them more obvious and less confusable with the inline-axis ''start''/''end''.

=== Proposal(s) ===

Christoph posted [[http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2012May/1046.html|several suggestions]], and the pair ''head''/''foot'' has gotten some traction.

=== Summary of Discussion ===

[[http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2012May/1051.html|Tab Atkins]]:

> 'head' / 'foot' actually makes some sense to me, as it corresponds to
> the directions of the header/footer in a document.  That's
> writing-mode dependent, and easy to explain.  (Plus, it always makes
> me strangely happy when keyword pairs are the same length.)

[[http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2012May/1055.html|Remy]]:
> I like head/foot, too.

[[http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2012May/1065.html|fantasai]]:
> I like head/foot as well. Unlike before/after, it's immediately obvious
> which directions it corresponds to, and it's not confusable with start/end.
> And given a pile of head/foot/start/end keywords, it makes it easy to map
> all of them to directions: once head/foot is assigned, start/end are easy.
> 
> It doesn't have the confusion with :before/:after that Sylvain noted [1].
> And as terminology in the specs it'll also avoid any confusion with DOM/
> source order terms. It seems to work well as values for 'caption-side' and
> 'float', and 'margin-head'/'margin-foot' makes perfect sense as well.
> 
> The one problem we've had with fixing the confusion of before/after was
> finding another pair that was clearly better. And I think this is *clearly*
> better.
> 
> I'm in favor of switching over! We haven't released any CR specs with any
> before/after syntax yet, so we still have the opportunity...
> 
> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2012May/0071.html

=== Resolution ===

[[http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2012May/1149.html|Resolved on head/foot]]