- From: Robert Burns <rob@robburns.com>
- Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 00:02:22 -0500
- To: public-html WG <public-html@w3.org>
On Jul 30, 2007, at 11:14 PM, Sander Tekelenburg wrote: > > At 12:37 -0500 UTC, on 2007-07-30, Robert Burns wrote: > > [... @lang and @dir] > >> Instead of just not requiring those attributes, we could also require >> those attributes have author specified values. > > Make that "human specified values", because: > >> We could give advice >> to authoring UAs that they should retrieve the values from these >> either from their own preferences or from the system preferences for >> the author. > > *Many* people run their system in their native language even they > though > regularly publish in some other language. So silently inserting > that a user's > authoring environment's language into @lang would likely lead to > lots of > incorrect @lang values, which would decrease the usefulness of > @lang in > general. > > What *could* be required of authoring tools is that they encourage > the user > to specify the language, and when the user doesn't, that the > authoring tool > then does not output a lang atribute at all. I can even imagine > that the > authoring tool (unless configured otherwise) by default pre-selects > that > user's default system language in a list of languages to choose > from. But it > must require the user to confirm or change that selection. Not > silently > insert any @lang value. This is basically the same thing I said (though you truncated my message). <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Jul/1192.html> There I said: "Proving a dialog on "new" can also help the author change those values on a case-by-case basis." There I was basically suggesting that the dialog would come up with the author's default language and then the author would confirm or change and confirm the language. > This is similar to authoring tools silently defaulting to some > value for > @alt. See <http://www.w3.org/TR/ATAG10/#check-no-default-alt>. I agree and it's probably worth stressing the need to not automatically add errant values (as you did with your email). > (Given how many 'rtl natives' also speak english, french, etc. I > suspect the > same, although perhaps somehwat less widespread, applies to @dir.) There I think the direction is very dependent on the language. In other words having the language set give everything required for directionality (unless I'm forgetting a particular case). In that sense the @dir is most useful when @lang is missing. Once @lang is there, @dir can be computed accordingly. However, for compatibility (with existing UAs in particular), it does not seem like much of a burden for authors (with authoring tool assistance) to simply add @dir at the same time @lang is added to the root element. Take care, Rob
Received on Tuesday, 31 July 2007 05:02:29 UTC