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It's a document format. The width is fixed by the browser window but the height is "as high as the document needs". As for vertical writing, it wasn't a priori
by lozenge 3y ago
It's a document format. The width is fixed by the browser window but the height is "as high as the document needs".
As for vertical writing, it wasn't a priority to the Western authors of web browsers at the time, then backwards compatibility meant we couldn't introduce it.
Edit: OK, I just set the writing-mode CSS property on a webpage (MDN) and it works- height is fixed and width is as long as needed to fit the content. But this was implemented in 2016. I don't know enough about the history of computing in Asia to say why it took so long to implement.
- Dalewyn 3y agoAt least with Japanese, the answer to "why it took so long" is "nobody really cared". Vertical writing is only commonly seen in books and very formal documents these days, and word processing software to make them have long supported it. Most writing, by hand or by computer, is done horizontally.