A share child was drawn in the measuring room and again in its slot, and
one record holding two questions made every local change under it defer
to the span. Where a rule or a hint gives the length along the span, the
first ask answers nothing the rule does not, so the child is asked once,
in its slot; the widgets that always report the whole of their box now
say so. A hint with a fraction resolves against the frame and pins it.
The dump rig prints every cold layout so a change to it shows in a diff.
There is one coordinate unit, the window. Every box in the tree is a
region in window units and a widget's frame is a length in the same
units, which is only what fractions resolve against, so the box need not
be the frame and padding can take from both without either becoming the
other. A region node's entry is a translation -- a rel 1 region anchored
where its box starts -- rather than a box, so nothing composes a frame
back up a chain and a node that moves is one entry write.
Padding is then an inset of both: its pixels come off the frame, so
rel(1.0) under it fills the padded widget rather than overflowing it,
and off the box, so what is drawn sits inside. A length a container
decides for a child's frame is a length of the window like everything
else here -- a row's slot, padding's frame less its pixels, or the box a
stack's sizing child decided, which arrives as Part::Sized -- because a
slot of a row is not a fraction of anything the row can name, the same
reason a node entry is a translation. A declaration is a fraction of
whichever of those reached it, and is the only one that also places the
box.
Frame validity is a pin beside the box's, not a range: a range of window
pixels cannot say which frame an answer is a fraction of, since two
frames are different lengths at the same window size. A widget pins its
frame by reading it or by being answered with it under a fractional
rule, and the pin composes up wherever a length of this frame is what
reached the child.
Also here, because the diagnosis needed them: the shrinker reports the
shrunk tree's own divergence with each level's frame, ask, box and size
warm against cold, and there is a size-resize case -- a change and then a
resize, the order that shows an answer kept as a fraction of the wrong
length, which every other case compares at the window it was made at.
Three defects the reports found, each pinned: a rule changed over two
pads relocated the column under them instead of dividing it again (seed
59, depth 5, resize-size), a share inside padding had the padding taken
off twice, and a root resolved its own rule twice.
fmt and clippy clean with and without layout-diagnostics, 121 suite, 20
core, 11 generated, the 400-seed depth-5 shrinker over all sixteen cases.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A widget draws in the box it is asked in and its answer is placed inside
that box by re-expressing the drawing; nothing is drawn again in a box an
answer chose. The offer machinery, whose job was to tell a measuring draw
from a placing one, goes with the placing draw. A span measures each child
from its cursor and moves fixed children to their slots with place_at; a
share child is asked once more in its decided slot with its frame narrowed
to it. A stack asks non-sizing children in the box its sizing child
decided. A scroll asks its content once and moves it to the scrolled
offset. A local redraw asks the retained question again and puts the
answer back where the parent placed it.
A symbolic length a child pinned composes through Part::Of exactly where
the part is the whole box less pixels, and pins the parent's own length
otherwise; dropping it let a pad reuse a drawing across a narrowed frame
of the same pixel length (shrinker seeds 60, 248 and 384 at depth 5).
Suite 114/114 including the two decided-box pins, fast oracle 11/11,
shrinker 400 seeds at depth 5 over all fifteen cases.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Three things the measurements asked for, all about how much a box that came
from an answer costs.
**A part in the box's own coordinates.** Saying "less eleven pixels at the
end" in frame lengths from the box's start means reading how long the box is,
and a container whose box is its own answer then depends on its own answer:
`Pad` drew sixty-four times in one resize frame at seed 13, chasing its own
width. `Part::Of` says the same thing as a part of the box, which composes
without a length -- pixels are pixels wherever the box lands -- and what a
child under it holds for maps back through that part onto the container's
own box rather than onto the frame.
**One axis of the box at a time.** `extent_len` pinned both axes, so a span
dividing one of them held for one length of the other as well, and a resize
broke every span whose cross-axis answer moved.
**No lazy placement.** Leaving a child's answer to be placed at the end of
the parent's draw, rather than as the child answers, was meant to save a
recomposition. It costs one instead: the drawing is put in the part first
and in the answer's box after, and where it does not hold for both that is
two drawings rather than one. Seed 1 at depth 8 went from 391 widget draws
on a resize to 29 with it gone. The test that pinned three draws for a
numeric leaf in a span goes with it.
Seed 1 at depth 8, widget draws / distinct widgets / update, against #18's
head and against the commit this branch started from:
| phase | e44dea3 | 34cafb6 | here |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| cold | 369/261/10.6 | 463/274/13.3 | 516/288/12.0 |
| repaint | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| many | 157/95/0.33 | 263/108/0.59 | 187/119/0.52 |
| size | 16/12/0.018 | 3/3 | 3/3/0.010 |
| scroll | 2/0.002 | 1 | 1/0.004 |
| resize | 13/13/0.019 | 22/15/0.032 | 24/76/0.090 |
Seed 13 at depth 8 is where the protocol still costs: `many` 1091 draws
against #18's 524, and `resize` 2215 against a frame #18 does not draw at
all. Both are the same shape -- an answer measured in one box and drawn in
another -- and the handoff says where that comes from.
Checked: fmt, clippy with -D warnings, 108 suite tests, 20 core tests, the
11 generated cases, and the shrinker at 400 trees of depth 5, which fails
seeds 2 (repaint) and 108 (reorder).
A widget is asked in two boxes rather than one. Its frame is what a fraction
it declares or reports is a fraction of, and it passes through a span, a
stack and a scroll unchanged, so `rel(0.5)` is half the same area however
many containers sit between: a frame is narrowed only by what is decided
above the widget -- a declared length, the root. Its extent is where the
drawing goes, given as a `Place` per axis: a part of the parent's own box,
measured in frame lengths from where that box starts, which the child either
fills or has its answer placed inside.
What that buys is that nothing under a container depends on where the
container sits. A container reads `extent_len` for the length it divides and
nothing about the start, so moving it re-places its children by re-adding
that start and draws nobody again; and a fraction is resolved once, against
the frame, rather than once per box it is composed through -- a stack sized
by a child that reports `rel(0.5)` no longer takes half of half.
`Place` replaces `DrawRegion`, `ExtentPlacement`, `widget_within`,
`measure_len`, `region()`, `placement()` and `box_of`. Primitives and masks
are written in the widget's own box's coordinates alone, so the drawing has
one reference rather than two. The placement pin goes with them: reading the
extent's length pins that length symbolically, and pins compose only where a
child's box is its parent's own.
Placing an answer waits for the end of the parent's draw or for the next ask
of that child in it, so a span child is one drawing and one move rather than
two moves.
`Pad` is transparent: its padding goes around what it pads and its child
keeps the outer frame, which is where `Outset` was going anyway. A fraction
under a pad is now a fraction of the frame rather than of the inset box.
Checked: fmt, clippy with -D warnings, 109 suite tests and 20 core tests in
debug, the 11 generated cases, and the shrinker at 400 trees of depth 5 over
all fifteen cases -- which still finds seed 108 under `reorder`, where a
wrapping text measured in one box and drawn in another settles differently
warm than cold. `redraw` therefore keeps the baseline's deferral for a box
that is not as long as the one the widget was measured in; the plan's step
6 is not done, and the next commit message or the handoff says why.
`Pad` and `Stack` read `Painter::placement` to put their children inside
their own drawing, and reading it is what says the drawing holds for that
placement alone. So a pad or a stack anywhere in a row was drawn again --
with its whole subtree -- the moment an earlier sibling changed length,
however little else had moved.
`widget_within` now takes a `DrawRegion`, and `DrawRegion::Extent(part)`
gives the child a part of the extent without reading it. What is retained
is the part rather than the box it resolved to, so moving the extent
re-places the child through the same rule instead of redrawing the parent:
`inherited_children` becomes `extent_children`, carrying `Inherit` for the
wrapper case `Painter::widget` already had and `Within(part)` for the new
one.
The dependency that goes up is a range on the container's extent rather
than on its frame, since only the part's *length* reaches the child and
where the part sits is re-placed. A declared length is unchanged: it is a
length of the frame wherever the box it sits in came from. What still pins
the placement is a report with a fraction in it -- the same fraction of a
different extent is a different length -- and that pin is on the answer,
which `extent_frames_keep_fractional_reports_and_numeric_dependencies_valid`
fails without.
Three tests from the first attempt at this come with it, and the
diagnostics rig now says which of the three contracts refused a reuse,
which is what found the above.
Measured, seed 1 at depth 8, median frame: `many` 0.667 -> 0.613 ms and
`resize` 48 -> 32 us; seed 13's `many` 6.35 -> 5.15 ms. Green: fmt, clippy,
109 suite and 20 core tests, the oracle at 100 seeds, the shrinker at 400
trees of depth 5, 1000 seeds at depth 6, and 2000 seeds at depth 4 over all
fifteen cases. The five reference renders are byte-identical to `0e107f0`
on Venus, as are `tabs` resized to 900x1200 and `random` to 1280x800
against cold renders there.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The protocol split: `region` is the box a parent gives a widget -- what a
fraction it declares or reports is a fraction of, and the coordinates
every region it writes composes within -- and it is the same box on the
ask that measures and the ask that places. `placement` is what of that
region the drawing takes, chosen by the parent per axis or by the
widget's own answer and alignment.
That is what stops a fraction being resolved twice: the placing ask no
longer hands the widget its own answer as its box, so nothing under it
re-resolves against a box that came from its own report. `reports_of`
and `decided` are gone, folded into the two regions; `box_of` is gone;
`declared_box` becomes `ask_box`, which gives a rule the region's length
and takes the position from the placement.
84 of 92 suite tests pass. Five text and region-node cases still diverge
warm against cold, and three count a second widget draw where a span's
measuring ask and its placing ask give different placements.
`rel(0.5)` is half the span whatever else is in it and wherever the child
sits among them (Bryan, 2026-09-17). It was half of what the span had left
at the point it asked, because a report came back composed through the box
it was offered and a span offers each child the room from its cursor -- so
a nested span taking half of what it was given took a quarter of a row
whose first half was already spoken for, where the same half written as a
rule on the child took half the row.
The offer stays the remainder: a text has to wrap at the width actually
there, and `a_text_in_a_span_wraps_at_the_room_left_rather_than_the_whole_row`
pins that. What separates from it is the base a report's fractions are of,
which the ask now carries. It is the box the child was given wherever that
box is the child's whole area -- a pad's inset, a stack child, a scroll's
content -- and a span passes its own extent along the row.
`widget_decided` becomes `widget_at`, which says both things about an ask
rather than one of them; `widget_within` is still the sugar for neither.
Two spans asking for half each now take the whole row between them and a
third overflows, which the rewritten
`a_span_reads_a_child_report_as_a_fraction_of_the_row` states outright.
The five reference renders are byte-identical at 1920x1200 and `random`
live-resized still matches a cold render, so nothing that exists reports a
fraction to a span today.
A widget reports a fraction of the box it was given. Span added that
fraction straight into a cursor that counts fractions of the row, and Pad
summed its padding onto it, both right only while the offer had the
parent's whole extent -- which a span's does not after a relative child.
DrawResult::size and known_len now compose the answer through the offer's
length, so a container reads lengths of its own box.
That exposed placed_box scaling a fractional answer against a box the
parent had already chosen from it, halving a nested span twice. The
near-edge alignment override becomes per-axis `decided` flags: a box the
parent chose from the answer is the answer, and is not placed again.
Span decides the row axis; Scroll and Stack's sizing child decide both.
Alignment is always the widget's own property now.
The window is no longer a move entry. Chains bottom out in MoveIdx::NONE
and the window is applied where a fraction becomes pixels, in to_px on the
CPU and by the uniform in the shader, which now snaps the summed coordinate
since a floor does not distribute over a sum. A resize rewrites no entry.
Verified: view, minimal, random, tabs and text render byte-identical at
1920x1200 against 5f16617, a live resize to 1280x800 is identical to a
cold render, and the 100-seed oracle, all fifteen shrinker cases at 400
seeds of depth 5, and 1000 seeds of depth 6 pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
`Stack` and `Pad` forced the near edge on every child. That override exists
so a container that reports a child's size and then hands it the box derived
from that report does not place its content twice -- and it is owed only
where the box really is the child's own answer.
`Stack` gives every child the box its sizing child defines. That box is
`box_of(child.size())`, so the sizing child has no room in it and needs the
override; every other child is handed a box that owes nothing to it, and
where it sits in one bigger than itself is its own business. With the
override it could not be aligned at all.
`Pad` reports its inner's size plus the padding, so where its box is that
answer the inset box is exactly the inner and alignment has nowhere to move
it. Where the box is bigger -- a share of a row, a rule over the pad -- the
slack belongs to the inner, and the override pinned it to a corner.
The `tabs` example is the visible case both ways: its counters asked for
`Align::RIGHT` inside a stack and sat at the left, and `text`'s narrow panel
filled a row it had asked to sit at the top of. Both match canonical `main`
again. Neither was noticed when `d3b0ebf` made alignment a property, and the
handoff's claim that `tabs` then "differs only in the widget count it prints
about itself" was wrong -- it was checked at `8220a78` and not re-checked
after the next commit.
Checked: fmt, clippy, 81 suite tests, 17 core unit tests, the release oracle
at 100 seeds and at 1000 seeds of depth 6, and all fifteen shrinker cases at
400 seeds of depth 5. `tabs`, `text` and `random` change exactly where a
child now honours its own alignment; `view` and `minimal` are unchanged.
`tabs` is still not `main`'s render: `.sized((100, 100)).center().width(
leftover(2))` on one widget no longer means a square centred in a two-share
box, because one widget carries one length per axis and `.width` overwrites
what `.sized` set. That one is an API question, not a bug, and is open.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Fixed point cost 3x in layout: `many` went from 0.179 ms a frame to 0.544,
and `scroll` from 0.011 to 0.030. The counters said why -- eight more "placed
by redrawing" a frame -- and the reason was mine rather than the grid's. A
retained drawing belongs to the layer it was made on, which `4e28f10` started
enforcing, and `Stack` measures the child that sizes it by drawing it on its
own layer and then draws it again on the child layer. So every stacked child
redrew twice a frame, forever.
`Painter::child_layer_at` addresses a child's layer rather than walking to
it, and `Stack` measures on the layer that child ends up on. The second ask
is then a reuse. Its glyphs are written once rather than once under the
background and once over it.
Measured on the same fixture: `scroll` 0.031 ms to 0.020, `many` 0.570 to
0.283, and the scroll phase's counters are back to what they were before
fixed point -- 4 widget draws and 12 draw requests a frame, exactly. What is
left above that baseline is not this.
`ReuseOutcome` could not say "another layer" or "the region-node choice
changed"; both returned without a counter, which is why the first look at
this said nothing. They have counters now.
Checked: fmt, clippy, 105 tests, five shrinker cases at 300 seeds, 100
generated seeds, and the examples byte-identical but for 36 pixels of
`random` at one level -- edges that were being drawn twice.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A widget's region is now held in the coordinates of the slot it draws in
rather than the window's, and `Painter::place` is how a container asks for a
slot: it draws a child it decides the box of and may decide again. Everything
under that slot is a fraction of its box, so placing the child a second time
is one entry to write whether it moved or changed length. A child drawn any
other way has no slot and shares its nearest ancestor's.
That is what keeps the chain short. `chain_cost` measured depth as the cost
-- free to 8, +42.6% at 16 -- and a slot per widget put a transcript's glyphs
past that for nothing, since almost every slot was zero. `Span`, `Aligned`
and `Scroll` are the containers that re-place a child after drawing it, and
`tests/layout.rs` pins that four widgets between a span and a leaf leave the
leaf's chain one deep.
`UiRegion::stretch`, `UiRegion::stretchable` and `UiScalar::stretch` are
gone. Nothing is inverted any more: a box that changed length is written to
its slot, and the descendants recompose against it in the shader. That also
retires the case the guard existed for, where a fixed length has no fraction
to recover -- `tests/layout.rs` now stretches a 40-tall row on its other
axis, which `stretchable` refused outright.
What still walks the CPU is deciding who must draw again, which no chain can
answer: `mark_resized` descends from the widget whose box changed and marks
anything whose own box changed length and whose drawing reads it. A part of
a box with no relative extent on an axis is a fixed length, and composing
into it leaves none either, so the walk stops where a length did not change
-- an 80-wide child in a widened row is not redrawn though it says `Redraw`.
`Span`, `Pad`, `Stack`, `Offset`, `Aligned`, `SetSize` and `LayerOffset` say
`Scale`: each places in fractions and offsets of its own box and none reads
the box's pixel length. `Scroll` and `MaxSize` do read pixels and stay
`Redraw`.
45 tests pass, five of them new. Render verification comes after the CPU
side, per the owner.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>