HTML Ruby extensions

Dear all,

I am about to send an email to public-html-admin requesting publication 
for an extension specification covering HTML Ruby, but that's just the 
administrativia and I wanted to prod this crowd here for feedback.

The draft snapshot is at:

     http://darobin.github.io/html-ruby/snapshots/FPWD.html

The editor's draft:

     http://darobin.github.io/html-ruby/

The extension spec addresses the following bugs:

     https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=20115
     https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=20114
     https://www.w3.org/bugzilla_public/show_bug.cgi?id=19255
     https://www.w3.org/bugzilla_public/show_bug.cgi?id=19254
     https://www.w3.org/bugzilla_public/show_bug.cgi?id=19253
     https://www.w3.org/bugzilla_public/show_bug.cgi?id=19252
     https://www.w3.org/bugzilla_public/show_bug.cgi?id=19251

In general, it addresses the use cases carefully gathered and developed 
over time by our friends in the I18N group:

     http://www.w3.org/TR/ruby-use-cases/

More specifically, it changes the current HTML specification in the 
following ways:

     • Removes nested <ruby> elements as a way of capturing double-sided 
ruby. As far as I can tell this is not implemented and not a single 
instance shows up in the corpora I've been able to access. An <rtc> 
element is introduced instead, which has a cleaner and more extensible model
     • Introduces an <rb> element for explicit ruby base text. This 
corresponds to actual usage in the wild where the <rb> element is 
relatively common. It also makes some use cases simpler to address.
     • The algorithm to process ruby has been entirely overhauled. The 
existing one is buggy, and does not process white space in a 
satisfactory manner for non-CJK languages.

Overall, since alignment with CSS is particularly important in this 
case, I also worked closely with Fantasai in order to align well with 
the new CSS Ruby model:

     http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-ruby/

The goal for this extension specification is to be reviewed on its own, 
but to eventually become integrated into the HTML specification. How 
much of it gets integrated and when largely depends on implementations. 
If implementations support this inside of the CR period, then all of it 
will simply be folded into HTML. If however the newer features are not 
yet supported well enough, a "viable subset" will get folded in. That 
viable subset will be primarily comprised of existing elements as 
processed by the new algorithm.

As a final note, those of you who are interested in such things may be 
interested to see that I am requesting publication of this document 
under the new dual CC-BY/W3C license. But more about that in my coming 
email to the -admin list.

Your feedback is very much welcome!

-- 
Robin Berjon - http://berjon.com/ - @robinberjon

Received on Monday, 7 October 2013 19:02:42 UTC