Re: 22 July Teleconference - Minutes

Very helpful!

I added this to next week’s Symbols agenda.

From: Russell Galvin <russell@blissymbolics.org>
Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 at 06:19
To: public-adapt@w3.org <public-adapt@w3.org>
Subject: Re: 22 July Teleconference - Minutes

Hi all,

A quick addendum to my comments in the meeting today while fresh in my mind...

I read the ruby related discussion on github that Mathew provided links to and played around with <ruby> with the resulting clarifications (for me, anyway):

1) <ruby> supports five or more annotations - I think it is effectively unlimited but I stopped at five - and just stacks them above and below the base text.

2) One of the discussions goes into at least two or three different types of ruby. So there is precedent for overloading the <ruby> element for different purposes.

3) The case I mentioned is valid but since WWII the usage of Chinese characters (kanji) has been discouraged with the adoption of a phonetic based script (kana) so has the issue has become less common.

4) <ruby> annotations present problems for text-to-speech systems. This would be even worse for Bliss codes but the obvious solution would be that T2S would just ignore the symbol annotations.

5) The Mozilla developer guide specifically states (my italic-bold for emphasis):

The <ruby> HTML element represents small annotations that are rendered above, below, or next to base text, usually used for showing the pronunciation of East Asian characters. It can also be used for annotating other kinds of text, but this usage is less common.

i.e. they are already there.

So I withdraw my dissenting opinion that this would be better handled with a separate element. It is just an annotation with a different role and if <ruby> just means annotation as opposed to Japanese annotation, then everything is hunky dory. There does not appear to be any danger of collisions happening although I haven't tested all browsers. The spec certainly does not put a limit on the number of entries allowed.

It's probably still a good idea for us to discuss the other option when in order to get consensus with the internationalization group, though.

Russell



On 2025-07-22 11:24, Lionel Wolberger wrote:

Hi Task Force,

Minutes of today's meeting are here, https://www.w3.org/2025/07/22-adapt-minutes.html

See you next week,

Lionel


--
Lionel Wolberger, Ph.D.
VP Business Operations
Level Access
https://levelaccess.com
https://userway.org