Re: [css3-text-layout] New editor's draft - margin-before/after/start/end etc.

On May 29, 2010, at 6:33 PM, Zack Weinberg wrote:

> Specifically, style sheets must cope with _on the fly user override_ of
> writing direction; thus any approach depending on document annotations
> cannot do the right thing in all cases.  

Isn't it pretty critical to know how the writing direction is being changed? If I were writing an e-book reader that allowed Japanese readers to switch text directions, I think I would do it by modifying the DOM, specifically by changing the value of the "dir" attribute, so Andew's solution seems workable for that.

If it is actually being done using some other sort of magic that does not involve anything in the actual document, then CSS has no role to play there. If it is being done by inserting Unicode explicit directional codes (which I never heard of before, but I'll trust you on that), then I'm not sure this would be within the scope of CSS. Perhaps it is, as a way of defining a pseudo-element. Can we find out what this mechanism typically involves (does it just change the value of the "dir" attribute?), so that we can know what kind of solution is needed?

I am not at all expert on this issue, btw.

Received on Sunday, 30 May 2010 05:48:08 UTC