Re: authoring @lang and @dir (was 3.6. The root element)

On Aug 7, 2007, at 5:34 AM, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:

>
> On Aug 2, 2007, at 12:56 AM, Robert Burns wrote:
>
>>
>> BTW, can you provide a use-case for setting @dir to the opposite  
>> value to what a particular script would usually have (i.e.,  
>> setting @dir to 'ltr' for Arabic or Hebrew or 'rtl' for Latin or  
>> Cyrillic or the like). I cannot think of any use-case myself.
>>
>
> I can't personally read any RTL scripts, so I can't tell you all  
> the details offhand. But things can get complicated when mixing  
> multiple scripts, and I imagine it is often useful to control  
> neutral text directionality separately.
>
> Here is a quick survey I did of a tiny handful of sites in Hebrew,  
> Arabic and Farsi:
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/arabic/news/ - does not use the dir  
> attribute at all, so it currently gets the default of ltr
> http://persianblog.com/home.php - does not use the dir attribute at  
> all, so it currently gets the default of ltr
> http://www.google.co.il/ - explicitly sets dir=ltr around a div  
> that contains hebrew text
> http://www.walla.co.il/ - does not use dir attribute at all, but  
> sets both "direction: ltr" and "direction: rtl" via CSS for  
> different elements
>
> These are some of the top sites in their respective languages, so  
> it's pretty clear to me that for compatibility with web content,  
> lang and dir must remain independent.


I'm not sure who you're arguing Maciej. This is the second email  
you've posted about keeping @lang and @dir independent. No one has  
suggested collapsing them.

Take care,
Rob

Received on Tuesday, 7 August 2007 18:02:25 UTC