Re: JLReq and Gap Analyses

Just a couple of points to add, from me.

On 17/06/2019 23:57, Nat McCully wrote:

> As for the Gap Analysis and Tests, I hope that they can serve the role of showing not only which CSS properties have been created to solve the problem of a lack of support for basic Japanese layout needs; but also to show if basic and more advanced layout can actually be achieved using them, across the major Web rendering stacks. The value of the Gap Analysis goes up when it can show not only that a given CSS property exists, but that the property can be used to achieve a representative use case for the feature. We probably need to review the existing tests to make sure they can show this.

I'd like to apply a very slight course correction here.

The goal of the Gap Analysis work is not to show which CSS properties 
have been created.  It's goal is to identify things that Web users and 
content authors are struggling with.

It *follows* from that that we need to check whether any blockage is 
caused by a deficiency in CSS (or HTML, or something else for that 
matter), or whether it's due to the browser or ebook implementers not 
adding specified features to their user agents.

But the main goal of the GA work is to identify things that 
users/content authors want to do but cannot (and prioritise those things 
in terms of the pain it gives them).

> The Web is changing faster and faster, and so for new CSS properties under review or discussion, we should draw up a set of tests that essentially make sure the property will fulfill its promise for the Japanese use-case, as it makes its way from draft to implemented-in-all-browsers finality, to aid in its utility for the originally intended use-case.

I'm beginning to think that if we develop a version 3 that is more 
Web-focused, it should perhaps be a separate document from the existing 
jlreq doc.  (It could be called "Japanese Layout Requirements for the 
Web", or some such thing.)  I agree with Nat that there's lots of very 
good print related stuff in the current jlreq, and that we need to be 
careful not to lose it, but i also think it will be difficult to manage 
both types of information in a single document.  So why not take a copy 
of jlreq, give it a new title, then rework the text as needed to make a 
new document.

By the way, we should also be careful not to tend too far in the 
opposite direction – we need to address fixed page layouts in ebooks as 
well as the highly fluid layouts that are possible on a web page.

hth,
ri

Received on Tuesday, 18 June 2019 10:52:09 UTC