- From: Andrei Polushin <polushin@gmail.com>
- Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2008 01:45:56 +0600
- To: www-style@w3.org
Ambrose Li wrote:
> Andrei Polushin wrote:
>> European Arabic, Hebrew Chinese, Japanese XSL-FO equivalent
>> ----------------- ---------------- ------------------- ------
>> logical-left semitic-right east-asian-top before
>> logical-right semitic-left east-asian-bottom after
>> logical-top semitic-top east-asian-right start
>> logical-bottom semitic-bottom east-asian-left end
>
> While I appreciate the reasoning of the proposal, I find this to be
> even more confusing than things are right now.
I do not propose the exact terms, but the principle of convenience. It
should be convenient for the specification writer to use simply (left,
right, top, bottom) throughout in the specification.
Implementers would prefer to keep (left, right, top, bottom) in their code,
but just remap them to follow the direction of the flow. In addition,
implementers would prefer to match their terms with the specification terms.
That should be mostly enough to successfully implement the thing like this.
Then, international web authors might be interested to use the most
convenient names in their stylesheets: when the stylesheet is designed for
the Hebrew web site, it would be convenient to express the stylesheet
relying upon the RTL coordinate system (and using the semitic-* terms).
That's all. If you are a spec writer, use "logical-left" etc. terms, and do
not beware of terminological bugs. If you are a spec reader, enjoy reading
it. If you are an implementer, use "logical-left" instead of left, and don't
bother at all. And only if you are a web author, use one of the terms from
the table above, which are most convenient for you.
> If we need writing-directon-independing wording, how about using some
> form of "advance" ("inline direction") and "leading" ("block
> direction")?
>
> BTW, due to western influence, I have been seeing more and more
> left-to-right vertical text for some years already (first I saw
> Korean, then I saw more and more Chinese). It's only a matter of time
> you can't assume vertical CJK is right-to-left.
Once again, I propose just the principle of convenience. Would it be
convenient, we can mention the writing mode explicitly:
European Arabic, Hebrew Chinese, Japanese XSL-FO equivalent
------------- ---------------- ------------------- ------
ltr-left rtl-right tb-rtl-top before
ltr-right rtl-left tb-rtl-bottom after
ltr-top rtl-top tb-rtl-right start
ltr-bottom rtl-bottom tb-rtl-left end
(Now ltr-left == logical-left from the previous table).
--
Andrei Polushin
Received on Saturday, 1 March 2008 19:46:06 UTC