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

See below

On Sun, Feb 26, 2012 at 5:13 PM, Matitiahu Allouche <matial@il.ibm.com>wrote:

> I am afraid that I have no  silver bullet for this issue, and I will go
> along with Aharon's proposal, but with some needed (IMHO) simplification,
> because if it needs 9 examples to describe it


The examples are not there to describe it, and I was not trying to give as
few examples as possible. I give a definition, and it's not complicated.
But let me re-phrase the definition of the default value of attribsdir even
more simply:

- If the element is not <input> or <textarea>, and has a dir attribute with
a value other than auto, the same as its dir attribute.
- Otherwise, if any ancestor of the element has a dir attribute with a
value other than auto, the same as the dir attribute of the closest such
ancestor
- Otherwise, 'ltr'.

, it is too complicated for my feeble mind.
> So here is what I propose.
> a. If attribsdir is not specified and the element has (explicitly or by
> inheritance) a dir different from auto, its dir applies to its visible
> attributes (no change from current spec).

b. If attribsdir is not specified and the element has dir=auto (explicitly
> or by inheritance), dir=auto also applies independently to each of the
> visible attributes.

c. If attribsdir is specified, it overrides the dir of the element. If
> attribsdir=auto, the direction is computed independently for each of the
> visible attributes.
>

I do not think that the definition can be phrased in terms of dir
inheritance because the dir attribute does not inherit. For example, <span
dir=ltr>&#x05D0;<span dir=ltr>bc</span>&#x05D3;</span> is *not* the same
as <span dir=ltr>&#x05D0;<span>bc</span>&#x05D3;</span> (the first comes
out דbcא, while the second comes out אbcד).

Thus, I would phrase the definition you are proposing (for the attribsdir
default value) as:

- If the element has a dir attribute, the same as its dir attribute.
- Otherwise, if any ancestor of the element has a dir attribute, the same
as the dir attribute of the closest such ancestor.
- Otherwise, 'ltr'.

Or, perhaps more simply, as: The default value of attribsdir is the same as
the value of the dir attribute of the element or its closest ancestor
having a dir attribute. If neither the element nor any ancestor has a dir
attribute, it is 'ltr'.

There are two simplifications in this definition compared to mine:
- no exception for <input> and <textarea>
- no exception for dir=auto

I can live with either or both of these simplifications, even though I
think that usually the results would be better without the simplifications.
However, I would prefer to let the HTML5 spec editor be the one to make
simplifications that only make the definition simpler, not more usable.


>
> Unless I am wrong (it has happened in the past), this proposal creates no
> backward compatibility problem,


Correct.


>  it is easy to understand and it allows any weird combination of different
> directions for element data and attributes' text to be solved by specifying
> attribsdir=auto and prefixing the attribute value by &lrm; or &rlm; as
> needed.
>

True.

I presume this means that you would be against allowing attribsdir to take
a more complicated (explicit) value like "title:ltr;placeholder:rtl",
correct?


> Shalom (Regards),  Mati
>       Bidi Architect
>       Globalization Center Of Competency - Bidirectional Scripts
>       IBM Israel
>       Mobile: +972 52 2554160
>
>
>
>
> From:        Ehsan Akhgari <ehsan@mozilla.com>
> To:        "Aharon (Vladimir) Lanin" <aharon@google.com>
> Cc:        public-i18n-bidi@w3.org, Martin J. Dürst <
> duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp>
> Date:        24/02/2012 19:30
> Subject:        Re: dir=auto makes no sense for descendant user-visible
> attributes
> ------------------------------
>
>
>
> 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/* <http://ehsanakhgari.org/>>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 11:53 PM, Aharon (Vladimir) Lanin <*
> aharon@google.com* <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*<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/* <http://ehsanakhgari.org/>>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 23, *2012* <2012> at 6:49 AM, Aharon (Vladimir) Lanin <*
> aharon@google.com* <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* <2012> at 11:32 AM, "Martin J. Dürst" <*
> duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp* <duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp>> wrote:
> On 2012/02/23 1:11, Ehsan Akhgari wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 22, *2012* <2012> at 10:04 AM, Aharon (Vladimir) Lanin<*
> aharon@google.com* <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.
>
>
>
>