Re: FW: Publication request for a FPWD of a future Interest Group Note by the DPUB IG

On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 12:56 PM, Bill McCoy <bmccoy@idpf.org> wrote:

> Ditto, but it raises a process question for me. Typically W3C WGs, in my
> understanding, do not concern themselves much with tracking or lobbying
> around implementation status of existing specification features. Thus
> section 2.1, and many of the issues in sections 3-9, would not seem to be
> within the purview of W3C WG to make progress on, other than perhaps for
> the corner case of making known the importance to the publishing community
> of thinly-implemented features that might otherwise become candidates for
> deprecation or removal. Of course the browser vendors participate in the
> WGs so it's great to use that forum as a means to make these issues known
> and helpful to see them in the overall prioritization but it seems what we
> really want out of CSS WG is progress on the issues in section 2.2 and 2.3.
>

The goal of this document was to start to answer the question of "What is
important to the digital publishing community?" in the context of CSS. This
seems well within the purview of our charter:

The mission of the Digital Publishing Interest Group is to provide a
> technical forum for experts in the digital publishing ecosystem to hold
> discussions and recommend solutions regarding a future vision of Digital
> Publishing
>

More generally, the W3C issues formal calls for implementation when specs
reach a certain level of maturity. I think it's reasonable for DPUB to more
informally lobby for important features. Since the first drafts have been
circulated, Chrome assigned the bug to support hyphenation, and Apple
announced they'd implemented font-feature-settings. Probably a coincidence,
but I think reminding people of such things has value. And many of the
people we want to remind are in the CSSWG :)

As you mention, this is especially important for features that may be
formally at-risk due to a lack of implementation. Browser vendors may think
no one is interested in those features; we are a voice saying we are
interested.


> I may be incorrect about this but, if not. it leads to the question of
> whether the group should consider additional means beyond CSS WG to lobby
> browser vendors to better meet these identified needs of the publishing
> community. For example, I understand that W3C is having periodic meetings
> with browser vendors, although I don't know if the agendas include lobbying
> for the needs of particular market segments.
>

Lots of us are thinking along those lines. Sounds like a good subject for a
call, or perhaps some informal discussions with the chairs and staff
contacts.


>
> It also raises a more trivial question of whether the document in its
> current form could be more clear in what we are asking of the CSS WG.
> Personally, I found the mixing of implementation gaps with missing
> specification features a bit confusing in the detail sections (3-9). It
> could perhaps be clarified if the issues in these sections were either
> color-coded differently or had some designation (e.g. *I*/*S*/*D*).
> Actually I see there being some gray area between "spec" and "design" so it
> might be sufficient to show it as two buckets.
>

That's a good point. This document evolved from a Google spreadsheet, but
in some cases lots of explanation was required for the various features
mentioned. The detail sections are an attempt to provide more structure for
those explanations, and provide quick outlines of features that don't yet
exist in CSS.

I'll see what I can do to make all this more clear.

Thanks very much for taking a look!

Dave



>> On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 5:51 PM, Siegman, Tzviya - Hoboken <
>> tsiegman@wiley.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks to Dave for his incredible work on publishing DPUB's Priorities
>>> for CSS!
>>> http://www.w3.org/blog/news/archives/4938
>>> http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-dpub-css-priorities-20150820/
>>>
>>>
>>> Tzviya Siegman
>>> Digital Book Standards & Capabilities Lead
>>> Wiley
>>> 201-748-6884
>>> tsiegman@wiley.com
>>>
>>>