Totally right that this should be dependent on some x value. Looking at it now, I think it probably is the parent's absolute_left that we should be adding the last layout's width to. Does that make more sense?

For what it's worth, there may be a few things like this that are lurking since my simple starting app had things up against the left and top. Once stuff is back in better working order, an early test I'll be doing is to see that things work when the text blocks are in a container that isn't right against the edges.