Re: Unicode normalization in CSS

Chris Lilley, Fri, 8 Apr 2011 13:17:48 +0200:
> On Friday, April 8, 2011, 10:33:43 AM, Henri wrote:
> 
>>> So I guess the question is, what's the right way forward here?
> 
> HS> Are there normal (who don't specifically go looking for problems)
> HS> authors out there complaining that the lack of browser-side
> HS> normalization is a problem for them in practice? 
> 
> Is someone who makes a directory listing on a Mac, and then drops 
> that text file directly into a Web page and attempts to use CSS with 
> it 'a 'normal user' by your definition?

Sounds 'normal', but uncommon.
 
> It seems to me that there are a lot of users of Macs nowadays,and a 
> lot of Web authors, almost all Web authors use CSS, and some of those 
> are the same people and quite a few of them are normal.
> 
> I understand that this will give a mix of NFC in the content and NFA 
> in the stylesheet, and thus non-matching classes and other attribute 
> names.

There are "normal" issues with non-canonical UNICODE on a Mac. You can 
find some info about my own troubles with this in a thread I started at 
www-international. [1] 

If CSS needs a fix, then IRIs/URLs/#fragment-IRIs need a fix too. In 
fact, IRIs are in a much deeper need for a fix than CSS since CSS 
typically happens inside an editor, while links need to point to those 
pesky non-canonicalized file names.

My conclusion w.r.t. URLs, is that there is much need for advice. And 
the advice should be split in two: [2] 
 EITHER an author can gather info about which of "his/her" characters 
that are affected by non-canonical issues. For example, in Norwegian, 
with our ÆØÅæøå letters, only the 'åÅ' is affected. Likewise, in 
Russian, only a pair of letters are affected. 
 OR, to avoid the trouble, the author can get hold of tools that take 
care of the normalization. In my case, I was finally able to find a FTP 
application (Yummy FTP) which took care of the Unicode normalization 
for me (I even managed to get the Yummy author to fix a bug). (But I do 
wonder if Yummy FTP is the only Mac FTP programme that takes care of 
this ...)

Ultimately, Apple needs to do (more) to fix the issue.

[1] 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-international/2011JanMar/thread#msg46

[2] 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-international/2011JanMar/0052

-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Monday, 11 April 2011 14:12:11 UTC