I find it difficult to float text against a non-rectangular border; even with the
CSS float attributes. It would be useful to be able to define a left and right
polyline or polygon to float the text against. This would allow very pleasing text layouts that follow the contours of images, as is often seen in magazines.
I can see where that might be seen as a feature purely for CSS to implement and not for HTML5; but as I try to envision it from a user's perspective the most natural way to implement it would seem to be to make an extension to
image maps. There is already a method defined for mapping coordinates to
a pixmap there.
The existing image map coordinates could be used in several
ways. A polygon might designate a left edge; another might designate a right edge. An interesting possibility is that text could be used to "fill" the regions
of the image not associated with a polygon; allowing for complex text fill patterns; but a simple left and right edge would allow for most uses, I suspect.
So maybe teaching an old dog new tricks is a good idea; and extending the image map seems the most intuitive way to implement the feature.