Re: [csswg-drafts] [css-text-4] [text-autospace] Spacing across element boundaries for BiDi content (#10803)

The CSS Working Group just discussed `[css-text-4] [text-autospace] Spacing across element boundaries for BiDi content`, and agreed to the following:

* `RESOLVED: autospacing happens *after* bidi-reordering, and we'll add a complex example to the spec`

<details><summary>The full IRC log of that discussion</summary>
&lt;TabAtkins> fantasai: so text-autospace inserts spaces between "changes" in a script<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> fantasai: if you ahve chinese with a little englihs, there should be some gap around the english otherwise it feels cramped<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> fantasai: q is what to do with bidi text<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> fantasai: we dont' insert space between chinese text and a *symbol*, only between chinese text and a letter<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> fantasai: so if you had a stretch of rtl text, like hebrew that ends with a symbol<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> fantasai: and you give it a direction so it all flips<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> fantasai: so symbol is on the left, hebrew letters on the right<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> fantasai: chinese text before and after<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> fantasai: if you insert space before reordering, you'll put it on the left side, which ends up between the chinese text and the symbol, while the hebrew and chinese dont' get a space<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> fantasai: so correct answer is to manage the sapce in visual order, after bidi reordering<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> fantasai: this is challenging, it interacts with linebreaking in awkward ways. hard to get perfectly right without maybe some backtracking<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> fantasai: so i think th e correct answer is visual spacing<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> fantasai: for practicual purposes, might tolerate getting it wrong in some complex cases<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> florian: do we need to spec the allowance for getting it wrong?<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> florian: or jsut spec the right thing and expect people to get it wrong sometimes, but they should still try?<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> fantasai: i'm not sure<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> fantasai: i think it's important to maek sure we get right - if both sides require spacing, it's done correctly, never get double space on one side<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> fantasai: that's minimum bar<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> astearns: I think we should specify what we want to see, without allowance, and only do that "getting it wrong is allowed" part if we have to<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> fantasai: i think that's reasonable.<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> fantasai: if authors are running into problems with certain cases, they can complain, and then we'll know those cases matter.<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> astearns: so proposed resolution is we specify that autospacing is done after bidi reordering<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> astearns: and you should never double auto-space any side<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> fantasai: yeah, that's implied<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> florian: do we want to add a note about it being hard?<br>
&lt;fantasai> Scribe+<br>
&lt;fantasai> TabAtkins: Useful to acknowledge if something is significantly difficult<br>
&lt;fantasai> TabAtkins: Here be dragons, when implementing<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> fantasai: i think they'll notice<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> astearns: would be good to have at least one example, hopefully we can find a real-world example<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> florian: could have a note which is less silly than my earlier phrasing. "CSSWG acknowledge that the interactino of this with line-breaking may be challenging to implement"<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> fantasai: or literally say "here be dragons"<br>
&lt;fantasai> s/or literally/or, as bkardell suggests, literally/<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> astearns: [restates proposed reoslution]<br>
&lt;TabAtkins> RESOLVED: autospacing happens *after* bidi-reordering, and we'll add a complex example to the spec<br>
</details>


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Received on Wednesday, 12 March 2025 16:26:17 UTC