RE: [css3-writing-modes] text-combine-mode should allow it being wider than 1em, and also other fallback behavior

I've got updates on this issue from publishers and vendors.

A vendor in Japan has implemented text-combine as currently spec'ed over WebKit, and sent to publishers for evaluations. However, the overlapping behavior was considered unacceptable by several publishers. The vendor also tried WebKit's current implementation, but their font is also wider than 1.1 so even 2 digits fallbacks to none, which is unusable too.

Since neither option is usable for them, they ended up using span and set its writing-mode to horizontal. They can't use ruby nor emphasis marks on such spans, so they said they hacked somehow. I didn't hear the details of the hack yet though.

I'll work on fixing this with fantasai, please let me know if anyone has concerns for doing so.


Regards,
Koji

-----Original Message-----
From: Koji Ishii [mailto:kojiishi@gluesoft.co.jp] 
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2012 8:53 PM
To: www-style@w3.org
Subject: [css3-writing-modes] text-combine-mode should allow it being wider than 1em, and also other fallback behavior

I was talking with Japanese publishers and heard they're concerned with the current definition of text-combine-mode[1] in the following two points:

1. Currently, "auto" value states that "must attempt to fit the contents within 1em" unless "text-combine-mode: no-compress" is specified. But two digits using Kozuka-Gothic for instance has 1.102em width, so it usually looks better if the UA doesn't compress. WebKit behaves this way today and he likes it, but the current definition of "auto" prohibits this behavior today. Is it possible for the "auto" value to allow UA to decide not to compress?

2. Old ED/WD defined UA to fallback to "text-combine-horizontal: none" but the current WD does not have an option for such behavior. The publisher doesn't want compress, nor overwrapping with neighbor lines, so the fallback to none would be the only option. There are such examples in the real world. Is it possible to allow such behavior either by adding a new value, or by allowing such behavior in "auto"?

I think adding a value to fallback to none, and allowing use of the value in "auto" along with allowing UA to define some tolerance gives what he wants.

Does this sound reasonable?

[1] http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-writing-modes/#text-combine-mode

Regards,
Koji

Received on Monday, 11 June 2012 20:02:38 UTC