I18N-ISSUE-117: Close definition of dir auto [HTML5-prep]

I18N-ISSUE-117: Close definition of dir auto [HTML5-prep]

http://www.w3.org/International/track/issues/117

Raised by: Addison Phillips
On product: HTML5-prep

3.2.3.4 The xml:base attribute (XML only)
http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/elements.html#the-xml:base-attribute-xml-only

The dir 'auto' value has this note:

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The heuristic used by this state is very crude (it just looks at the first character with a strong directionality, in a manner analogous to the Paragraph Level determination in the bidirectional algorithm). Authors are urged to only use this value as a last resort when the direction of the text is truly unknown and no better server-side heuristic can be applied.
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Does HTML5 need to define auto so closely that no user-agent can provide a better algorithm? That seems counter-productive. Some room for innovation should be preserved.

Received on Saturday, 23 July 2011 18:52:04 UTC