Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Idea: Boxview - a new kind of html editor

This is an idea for a better html editor:
  • Expose the box model to the html programmer by visually showing the boxes that elements are contained within
  • allow changing of padding, margin and border properties directly instead of through property sheets
  • automatically calculate the minimal set of properties required to specify the box model built by the user. Eg, if a child and its parent element have the same property, bubble the property up an dinherit it.
  •  Allow abilty to specify "global" overflow and containment of elements directly instead of through interacting css properties.
  • Allow views of the model with no content, some content and  a lot of content directly, so that the model can be stress tested.