- From: John Daggett <jdaggett@mozilla.com>
- Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2011 23:29:27 -0700 (PDT)
- To: Daniel Glazman <daniel.glazman@disruptive-innovations.com>
- Cc: "w3c-css-wg@w3.org WG" <w3c-css-wg@w3.org>, W3C Style <www-style@w3.org>
[cross-posted to www-style] > 6. recommended styles for <em> in Asian scripts > ----------------------------------------------- > > Should we officially recommend the HTML WG to use > 'text-emphasis-style' for <em> in Asian languages? > Ping the I18N WG about it? > > http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2011Sep/0353.html I can't be on the call this week so I just want to repeat what I already posted to www-style [1], namely that I think changing the defaults to a property that's not yet commonly in use is a dangerous proposition. While it might make all the theoretical sense in the world, there are going to be lots of cases where users expect obliqued characters for <em> elements even though there isn't a typographic tradition of doing this (e.g. Japanese). Lots of general purpose software uses <em> elements for UI (e.g. in subject headers of forum postings). Substituting the use of emphasis marks in these situations may not work at all, either because of the layout or because in the specific context it doesn't represent the same level of contrast with the surrounding text. For example, are emphasis marks going to distinguish text as clearly as obliquing when viewed on a typical smartphone screen? This is why I feel it's safer to wait until emphasis marks are widely implemented and authors have a chance to use them before committing to specifying their use in HTML defaults. Cheers, John Daggett [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2011Sep/0386.html
Received on Wednesday, 28 September 2011 06:29:57 UTC