[Bug 11734] New: Document the special effect of dir=auto on <pre> and <textarea>

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=11734

           Summary: Document the special effect of dir=auto on <pre> and
                    <textarea>
           Product: HTML WG
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: PC
        OS/Version: Windows NT
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: HTML5 spec (editor: Ian Hickson)
        AssignedTo: ian@hixie.ch
        ReportedBy: aharon.lists.lanin@gmail.com
         QAContact: public-html-bugzilla@w3.org
                CC: mike@w3.org, public-html-wg-issue-tracking@w3.org,
                    public-html@w3.org


This originally appeared as bug 10808 comment 51.

While most of the directional effects of the dir attribute (like those of the
bdo and bdi elements) are explicitly documented, it is not documented that the
<pre> and <textarea> elements significantly modify the effects of dir=auto (by
setting unicode-bidi:plaintext). That this happens only in the presentation
layer, via the default sylesheet, is irrelevant: the effects of <bdo> are also
entirely defined by the default stylesheet, but are nevertheless explicitly
documented.

I would therefore suggest something like the following note under the
description of the dir attribute, perhaps after "For example, the rendering
section in this specification defines a mapping from this attribute to the CSS
'direction' and 'unicode-bidi' properties, and CSS defines rendering in terms
of those properties."):

"Please note that this mapping is significantly augmented for the pre and
textarea elements, where dir=auto results in unicode-bidi:plaintext, which
determines the base direction of each bidi paragraph of these elements' content
independently."

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Received on Tuesday, 11 January 2011 13:35:11 UTC