[css-lists-3] Should marker-side affect 'direction' computation?

[fantasai]

https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2012Oct/0118.html

I think currently, marker-side only affects the position. Should it also affect direction? If it doesn't, how would we get the list marker to match the list's direction?

[fantasai]

See also thread including http://www.w3.org/mid/001d01cb04e1$37496260$a5dc2720$@com

[fantasai]

Chatted with @emilio about this today, and the problem is the style computation implications of making direction pull from the parent box in the case of marker-side is too complicated to be practical. direction is already an early dependency of most style computation (due to its affecting the cascade of logical properties), and this would make it depend on marker-side, list-style-position, and display as well as the ::marker’s originating element's parent box’s direction.

The suggestion here is to instead ask authors to compensate via style rule, and to put the compensation code in an example in the spec:

@supports (marker-side) {
  X { marker-side: match-parent / list-container / whatever we decide to call it; }
  *:dir(rtl) > X::marker { direction: rtl; }
  *:dir(ltr) > X::marker { direction: ltr; }
}

(Of course all of this can be worked around by having a inner wrapper element to which the direction is applied, rather than setting dir on the list-item itself.)