Re: Ebook requirements for Ruby markup

Robin,

Your specification seems quite thorough and I'm glad to see activity in
this area!

I noted that the informative references don't appear to include anything
specific to the Traditional Chinese application of "Bopomofo Ruby". This is
apparently of quite critical concern to publishers in Taiwan, particularly
education publishers but also in some other segments. So I attach a
document recently circulated to my attention and would urge that you or
someone involved double check that requirements listed there are understood
and ideally addressed. I would be happy to connect you with stakeholders
there if they are not already part of this list, as IDPF has many members
from the Taiwan publishing industry (and I will visit there later this
Fall).

If for some reasons all requirements inc. Bopomofo can't be addressed
directly in the base spec then it could be considered whether a
publishing-specific extension could be made, perhaps only in EPUB context,
but I'd rather have the Open Web Platform be suitable "out of the box" and
move in the direction of convergence.

A separate item that I presume needs to be investigated is implications of
your proposed changes in markup and processing model for backwards
compatibility of existing uses of ruby inc. in EPUB. Should this perhaps be
listed as one of the issues?

Thanks,

--Bill



On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 7:27 AM, Robin Berjon <robin@w3.org> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I was perusing the report from the eBooks & i18n workshop[0] that took
> place in Tokyo last June and I noticed that Ruby support rated close to as
> high as it possibly could.
>
> One thing that it does not clearly state however is which features from
> ruby are needed, or at what level of priority.
>
> The current HTML5 specification does have some support for Ruby[1], but
> some concerns have been raised about limitations in its support for a
> number of features, notably jukugo and double-sided ruby, as well as inline
> ruby.
>
> As a result of those concerns, I have put together a specification that is
> aimed at replacing the current HTML5 Ruby support in order to add those
> features. You can read it at:
>
>     http://darobin.github.io/html-**ruby/<http://darobin.github.io/html-ruby/>
>
> At this stage, several implementers have expressed interest, but they are
> unsure as to how much interest there is in the feature. So in order to make
> progress in pushing this forward (or, on the contrary, to simply drop it if
> there isn't enough support for it) it would be most useful to benefit from
> the digital publishing community's feedback in this area as I believe you
> are likely to have strong and informed opinions on the topic.
>
> Thanks a lot!
>
>
> [0] https://www.w3.org/2013/06/**ebooks/report.php<https://www.w3.org/2013/06/ebooks/report.php>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/**drafts/html/master/text-level-**
> semantics.html#the-ruby-**element<http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/text-level-semantics.html#the-ruby-element>
>
> --
> Robin Berjon - http://berjon.com/ - @robinberjon
>
>