Re: dir=auto makes no sense for descendant user-visible attributes

Ok, let's see if anyone else responds.

On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 7:28 PM, Ehsan Akhgari <ehsan@mozilla.com> wrote:

> I'm fine with attribsdir as you proposed, although I'm not quite sure
> about the more complex syntax, since it's so different to the way other
> attributes in HTML work.
>
> Let's hear what others think.
>
> Cheers,
> --
> Ehsan
> <http://ehsanakhgari.org/>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 11:53 PM, Aharon (Vladimir) Lanin <
> aharon@google.com> wrote:
>
>> Good example.
>>
>> In the past, Ian has already rejected titledir etc.
>>
>> Perhaps they will be more receptive to attribsdir, since it's just one
>> attribute and tackles some serious problems.
>>
>> Your example could be handled by also allowing syntax like
>> "title:rtl;placeholder:ltr". Even just " placeholder:ltr" could do if the
>> other attributes then follow the default (which in this case would
>> presumably be rtl despite dir=ltr on the <input>). Since it does not
>> inherit, there would not be too much difficulty supporting the complex
>> syntax.
>>
>> But attribsdir would still be useful even if it only allowed a simple
>> value.
>>
>> Aharon
>> On Feb 23, 2012 6:11 PM, "Ehsan Akhgari" <ehsan@mozilla.com> wrote:
>>
>>> How about something like:
>>>
>>> <input name="phone" title="TELEPHONE" placeholder="(123) 456-7890">
>>>
>>> If we introduce an attribsdir attribute, I can see people asking to
>>> differentiate between different attributes, such as the example above.
>>> From a bidi perspective, the ultimate solution is to have a directional
>>> attribute for every user visible attribute, such as titledir,
>>> placeholderdir, etc.  But honestly I don't expect such a proposal to be
>>> easily accepted in WHATWG, given the recent resistance towards
>>> placeholderdir.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Ehsan
>>> <http://ehsanakhgari.org/>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 6:49 AM, Aharon (Vladimir) Lanin <
>>> aharon@google.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Well, I, for one, am not so happy with my proposal :-).
>>>>
>>>> Its solution is to apply dir=auto to the individual user-visible
>>>> attributes, even though in most cases the values of such attributes are not
>>>> dynamic, but localized to the page locale, e.g. (in an English page) <input
>>>> dir="auto" name="purpose" placeholder="The purpose of your visit.">. Using
>>>> estimation for them is not just wasteful, but bound to reach the wrong
>>>> conclusion occasionally.
>>>>
>>>> And it does not address the long-standing issue of no way to set the
>>>> directionality of an attribute (other than using formatting
>>>> characters). The canonical examples are:
>>>>
>>>> - <input dir="ltr" name="telephone" title="PHONE NUMBER.">, which has
>>>> to be worked around as <span title="PHONE NUMBER."><input dir="ltr"
>>>> name="telephone"></span>
>>>> - <input dir="ltr" name="telephone" placeholder="PHONE NUMBER.">, which
>>>> has no workaround other than RLE + PDF.
>>>>
>>>> What if we could instead have a new attribute,
>>>> attribsdir="ltr|rtl|auto", which would determine the directionality in
>>>> which the element's user-visible attributes must be displayed. A very
>>>> important part of this would be the default value. IMO, it would be best if
>>>> it could default to the dir attribute value of the closest ancestor - or
>>>> the element itself unless it is <input> or <textarea> - that has an
>>>> explicit dir attribute with a value other than "auto". If there is no such
>>>> ancestor, the default is "ltr". Thus:
>>>>
>>>> - the only way to get attribsdir=auto is to specify it explicitly
>>>> - the explicit dir attribute value of <input> and <textarea>, which is
>>>> presumably meant to correspond to the directionality of their content, not
>>>> their user-visible attributes, does not affect their default attribsdir.
>>>> - with the exceptions of <input dir="...">, <textarea dir="...">, and
>>>> <whatever dir=auto>, the result is backward-compatible.
>>>>
>>>> Examples:
>>>>
>>>> 1. <html><body><div title="?">: ltr
>>>>
>>>> 2. <html dir=rtl><body><div title="?">: rtl
>>>>
>>>> 3. <html><body><div dir=rtl title="?">: rtl
>>>>
>>>> 4. <html><body><div><div dir=rtl><div><div title="?">: rtl
>>>>
>>>> 5. <html dir=rtl><body><div><input dir=ltr title="?"> : rtl
>>>>
>>>> 6. <html><body><div dir=rtl><div dir="auto" title="?">hello</div>: rtl
>>>>
>>>> 7. <html><body><div dir=rtl><div dir="auto">ltr content<div title="?">:
>>>> rtl
>>>>
>>>> 8. <html dir=rtl><body><div title="?" attribsdir="ltr">: ltr
>>>>
>>>> 9. <html dir=rtl><body><div title="?" attribsdir="auto">: auto
>>>>
>>>> Even if we couldn't get the <input> and <textarea> exception, we would
>>>> still be ok - the page would just have to specify attribsdir explicitly on
>>>> the problematic inputs.
>>>>
>>>> Aharon
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 11:32 AM, "Martin J. Dürst" <
>>>> duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On 2012/02/23 1:11, Ehsan Akhgari wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 10:04 AM, Aharon (Vladimir) Lanin<
>>>>>> aharon@google.com
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>  One possibility is to divorce user-visible attributes from their
>>>>>>> elements'
>>>>>>> directionality completely, always estimating the directionality of
>>>>>>> each
>>>>>>> attribute by its content. This suffers from backwards compatibility
>>>>>>> problems (since estimation is a heuristic that sometimes gives the
>>>>>>> wrong
>>>>>>> answer).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> A better possibility is to divorce it only for elements under the
>>>>>>> influence of dir=auto. Thus, if an element has dir=auto (explicitly
>>>>>>> or
>>>>>>> implicitly, the latter being the case for<bdi>), each of the
>>>>>>> attributes in
>>>>>>> the subrtree rooted at that element, with the exception of elements
>>>>>>> specifying dir="ltr" or dir="rtl" and their descendants, must be
>>>>>>> displayed
>>>>>>> to the user as if they had a dir=auto of heir own.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> I like the second proposal better.  Although I have to say that it
>>>>>> has been
>>>>>> worded a bit vaguely.  What I have in mind is for the title attribute
>>>>>> in
>>>>>> the following example to have a resolved RTL direction:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> <p dir="auto" title="RTL TEXT followed by ltr text">ltr text FOLLOWED
>>>>>> BY
>>>>>> RTL TEXT</p>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I agree with Ehsan that the second proposal is better. It's something
>>>>> that comes quite naturally once one gets used to it.
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,    Martin.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>

Received on Sunday, 26 February 2012 07:34:57 UTC