RE: [css3-text] Proposed pruning & scoping of hyphenation properties

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alex Danilo [mailto:alex@abbra.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2011 9:43 PM
> To: Christian Stockwell
> Cc: fantasai; www-style@w3.org
> Subject: RE: [css3-text] Proposed pruning & scoping of hyphenation properties
> 
> Hi Christian,
> 
> --Original Message--:
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: fantasai [mailto:fantasai.lists@inkedblade.net]
> >> Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2011 8:43 PM
> >> To: Christian Stockwell
> >> Cc: www-style@w3.org
> >> Subject: Re: [css3-text] Proposed pruning & scoping of hyphenation
> >> properties
> >>
> >> On 03/29/2011 08:15 PM, Christian Stockwell wrote:
> >> >
> >> >>> 1. I think that adding "hyphenate" to "word-wrap" is a mistake.
> >> >>> I expect that real world usage of word-wrap is low and the use
> >> >>> case for word-wrap: hyphenate is-at best-narrow. Since we're
> >> >>> already in the realm of linguistic incorrectness we should just
> >> >>> keep it simple rather than add new speculative values to the standard.
> >> >>
> >> >> What makes you say that word-wrap: hyphenate is in the realm of
> >> >> linguistic incorrectness? It was proposed precisely to preserve
> >> >> linguistic correctness while avoiding overflow.
> >> >
> >> > I think that in the context of the English language there are
> >> > levels of linguistic correctness in the context of hyphenation. If
> >> > that were not the case then there would be no need for a
> >> > hyphenation resource at all, as we'd consider "append", "a-ppend",
> >> > and "ap-pend" to be equally acceptable.
> >> >
> >> > The reality is that those two hyphenated versions of "append" are
> >> > not equal.. Most readers would not give the latter version a
> >> > passing glance if encountered at the end of a line, whereas the
> >> > former would likely cause a reader to stumble. ...
> >>
> >> Isn't the hyphenation dictionary supposed to take care of that?
> >I don't follow. What is the hyphenation dictionary supposed to take care of
> here? Perhaps it would help to describe an expected use case for "word-wrap:
> hyphenate" and how it would relate to usage of "hyphens".
> 
> Fantasai meant that the hyphenation dictionary would not mark the position
> after 'a' in 'a-ppend' as a possible hyphenation point.
> 
> Dictionary or rule-based hyphenation algorithms would never make that position
> breakable and so, no hyphenation would occur.
> 
> word-wrap: hyphenate
> 
> is telling the user agent to apply sensible hyphenation rules if required to fit the
> lines of text. There is no implied requirement to break words at the end of line if
> such a break would read badly.
> 
> Dictionaries are only one way hyphenation is performed, and in rule based
> systems you'd find that breaking after a vowel at the start of a word is forbidden
> in English at least.

I think I may be misunderstanding the intent of word-wrap: hyphenate. My understanding was that word-wrap: hyphenate would be similar to word-wrap: break-word in that an arbitrary spot in the text would be selected for hyphenation as to minimize whitespace. What you're describing is that  word-wrap: hyphenate is actually an alternative mechanism to opt into the equivalent of "hyphens: auto" for a single word.

If that's the case, it seems like we've already solved this problem through the use of the hyphenation-limit-zone property (e.g. set the hyphenation zone width to be 99% and authors may have a solution to this corner case).

If this corner case problem is adequately solved by hyphenation zone we can avoid getting embroiled in specifying exactly what it means to "influence" word breaks without "controlling" them (as used in the editor's draft). 

> 
> Alex
> P.S. The monks that came up with hyphenation hundreds of years ago would be
> rolling in their graves right now at the suggestion they didn't understand
> linguistic correctness...

I would never intentionally besmirch long-dead monks :) Thanks for the clarifications.

Received on Wednesday, 30 March 2011 05:26:02 UTC