[webkit-dev] Rebaselining render tree dumps

[David Hyatt]

RenderTreeAsTetxt has a large number of hacks in it that have been put in over time to keep the dumps from changing too dramatically.  Some of these include:

(1) Table cells dump incorrect dimensions and positions.
(2) Text nodes dump an incorrect bounding box position.
(3) RenderInlines don't dump their position at all.
(4) The root layer incorporates overflow when it shouldn't.
(5) The root element has a RenderLayer when there has been no need for it to have a RenderLayer for years.  It only has one in order to not change all the layout tests.

In addition there is information not being captured that would be useful to include in the dump.  Examples of this include:

(1) Layout and visual overflow for elements.  Right now we're completely dependent on repaint tests to catch changes in visual overflow.
(2) scrollOrigin for the ScrollView and for overflow sections.
(3) intrinsic padding of table cells.
(4) Transforms and relative positioning offsets

I'm sure people may have other ideas about things to include in the geometry dumps that aren't there right now, so send me your suggestions.

What I'd like to do is have a rebaselining day (probably after the holidays in January) where we just shut the tree down and all the ports rebaseline to the new format (with the hacks removed and any changes we want to make added).

What do people think of this idea?  How can we make sure that a rebaselining like this goes smoothly?

dave
(hyatt at apple.com)