Re: [whatwg] <time>

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 5:05 PM, Robert J Burns <rob@robburns.com> wrote:

> Hi Tom,
>
> I think those examples and suggestions all look good. I have one correction
> and one other example.
>
> First the correction
>
>  <time calendar="Mayan" datetime="12-11-10-09-08">A date</time> is printed
>> on the statue
>> Printed on the page: "A date is printed on the statue"
>> Tool tip shows: "12-11-10-09-08 (Mayan Long Count)"
>> In this example, my user agent does not understand the date, and simply
>> display in a non converted way
>>
>
>
> Here I think the tool tip has to be:
>
>  Tool tip shows: "12-11-10-09-08 (Mayan)"
>>
>
> directly providing the keyword without a localized natural language form
> (as in your example). That is for unsupported calendars the UA would simply
> have to present the raw attribute values in these cases. For supported
> calendars the dates can be formatted and things like months, for example,
> can be presented in a localized manner (January for English instead of 01,
> Janvier for French, etc.).


I can only agree with you. As the user agent does not understand calendar
"Mayan" it obviously cannot do anything better than just reused the value
provided. Let's add that on our proposal.

I am not an expert in calendars, just someone who happens to have some
interest in Native American history, thus my *basic* knowledge of the Mayan
Long Count calendar. Assuming that I always saw the name exactly as "Mayan
Long Count calendar" I guess the correct format would be:
<time calendar="Mayan Long Count" datetime="12-12-12-12-12">
which would show correctly "12-12-12-12-12 (Mayan Long Count)" in the
tooltip.

Of course, this was only one possible way a user agent could display the
data, I didn't propose that all user agents should display the data the way
I did.


>
>
> Another worthwhile example (one you suggest, but don't provide
> specifically) would be to include something like
>
> This occurred on <time calendar="Gregorian" datetime="1882-03-14" />  on
> Ellis Island.
>
> where supporting UAs actually include the localized, formatted date
> according to the user defaults.
>
> This occurred on March 14, 1882 on Ellis Island.
>
> A tool tip could still show shows: March 14, 1882 (Gregorian).


Since Gregorian is the default calendar, and 99% of all dates on the web
will be Gregorian, I don't expect that browsers will explicitly show
"Gregorian", but rather only show what calendar is in use when the calendar
in use is not Gregorian.

However I think you wanted to show an example where no content is present,
which obviously I forgot. Your example shows exactly what I would expect a
user agent to do, although I would expect that at least some of them are
going to try and avoid situation where the tooltip would not give any
information which are not already displayed on screen (assuming they don't
explicitly indicate "Gregorian"), but exactly how user agents decide on this
kind of details is to be discussed on the Mozilla mailing list in a few
months from now, isn't it? :)


>
>
> Otherwise I'm in complete agreement with the remainder of your message.
>
>
If nobody object, I could repost a similar message (with a compiled list of
proposal updated with our latest agreements and relevant examples) every
other day, so eventually we can reach a consensus.