Re: Generalizing Markup for Interlinear Text Presentation

I really appreciate the opportunity for this discussion :-)



>
> > CSS work arounds are available to create the desired visual effects, but
> > are really only suitable >for a single browser and version.
>
> Which is to say they are not suitable for the Web :)
>


In my experimentation I found that Ruby layout support varies widely in web
browsers. So building upon Ruby markup and styles was hazardous.  More so
than web, I think support in eBook standards is desired, which seems to
lead back to web standards.  The capability that javascript and css provide
to dynamically manipulate the annotation I believe is important for this
class of literature.



>
> I doubt that we want to try the approach of making a lot of specific
> extensions for specific types of content like chant - that generally leads
> to a lot more complexity than is manageable, and gets broken quickly.
>
> However, I think it would be useful to consider a way to solve this class
> of problems.
>
> There have been a lot of efforts on annotation of Web content that allows
> something more flexible than the strict tree structure forced by the DOM,
> but finding a sweet spot between making it simple enough to use so it gets
> traction in content, simple enough to implement and maintain that people
> do, and general enough to stop an explonential expansion of HTML, is a
> challenge...
>
> It is probably worth opening something in the Web Patform Incubator, to
> follow this up. My sense is that if we don't have a fairly generic
> solution, we are unlikely to get very far.
>


These points I appreciate and fully agree with.  The goal of the initial
letter was to seek guidance for a direction forward.  I've sent a request
now to join the Web Platform Incubator group.  Thanks!


A side note, since work arounds will be needed for some time, if there is
one request I would make of Ruby CSS it would be to formally recognize the
CSS "bottom" property in the style attribute of "rt" tags. This would allow
setting of the vertical distance between the ruby text and ruby base.
Older Chrome supported this and I believe Safari does as well.  MS Word's
support for Ruby annotation also has an offset property to set this
distance.



>
> I would also suggest prodding the Music notation community group since 1.
> This is music, and 2. they have similar sorts of issues even though their
> focus is on "traditional" (by which I think they mean modern) Western
> music notation, as far as I understand.
>


I'll send a letter to the group for awareness, musicologist there may have
an interest in the topic.  There is a pitfall in over-associating chant
with music notation.  Chant writing is more similar to annotation than it
is music scoring, and predates it.  Chant notation does not use a scale,
the vertical position of symbols does not indicate pitch, and is annotation
is vocal only, not for playback by instruments.  Chant notation practices
are a spectrum though and some practices indeed blur the lines between
annotation and music scoring.

 thank you,

-Daniel



> cheers
>
> Chaals
>
> > I'm sparing some details now but am happy to respond to questions.
> >
> > thank you,
> >
> > -Daniel
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 10:50 PM Florian Rivoal <florian@rivoal.net>
> > wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Sorry for the very late reply.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Other than the fact that ruby is called ruby and not a more general
> >> term, could you give some >>details about what is missing from the
> >> existing technologies (markup and css) to be able to >>adequately
> >> represent the kind of interlinear text you are thinking about?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> —Florian
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>> On Nov 28, 2017, at 12:35, Daniel Yacob <yacob@geez.org> wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>
> >>> Greetings,
> >>
> >>>
> >>
> >>> HTML markup support for interlinear text is limited to Ruby annotation
> >>> use cases. Arguably Ruby >>is the most common and best understood
> >>> interlinear writing practice. There are other practices >>that have
> >>> layout needs in common with Ruby but then have their own additional
> >>> presentation >>requirements. While there may be many uses cases for
> >>> interlinear text, I'm personally only >>familiar with staffless chant
> >>> notation (e.g. Znamenny, Syric, Byzantine, Ethiopic, Hebrew, etc).
> >>
> >>>
> >>
> >>> Could the W3C WG for HTML take on the bigger problem of tag support
> >>> for interlinear text >>layout?  Ruby might then be treated as a
> >>> special case of interlinear text and chant as another.  >>Both could
> >>> apply a common base tag set, then more specialized tags as needed.
> >>
> >>>
> >>
> >>> I realize that this approach throws a wrench into established Ruby
> >>> markup, which could be >>grandfathered in and deprecated over time, or
> >>> not.  My main thrust here is to raise the need for >>broader
> >>> interlinear text layout support under HTML and make myself available
> >>> to discuss >>requirements with interested parties.
> >>
> >>>
> >>
> >>> thank you,
> >>
> >>>
> >>
> >>> -Daniel
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Chaals is Charles McCathie Nevile
> find more at http://yandex.com
>
>