- From: Matitiahu Allouche <matial@il.ibm.com>
- Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2012 22:23:38 +0200
- To: "Aharon (Vladimir) Lanin" <aharon@google.com>
- Cc: Martin J. Dürst <duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp>, Ehsan Akhgari <ehsan@mozilla.com>, Najib Tounsi <ntounsi@emi.ac.ma>, public-i18n-bidi@w3.org
- Message-ID: <OFD8290670.12724CF7-ONC22579B2.006EECDA-C22579B2.007008B4@il.ibm.com>
It is true that with my proposal, including the updated version dated Feb
28, <bdi> will not be identical to <bdi dir="auto"> as applies to the
direction of visible attributes. However, the behavior will be easy to
understand and predictable, thus I am not overly concerned with the small
incongruity above.
I have to disagree with your own formulation:
<Aharon wrote>
If attribsdir is not explicitly specified, the element's attributes must
be displayed in the direction specified by the value of the dir attribute
of the closest ancestor of the element (or the element itself) having an
explicit, valid dir attribute with a value other than "auto"
<end of quote>
The above implies that all explicit mentions of 'dir="auto"' will be
ignored. This is not what I want. If dir equals "auto", I want first
strong char recognition to be applied to each visible attribute
independently.
Shalom (Regards), Mati
Bidi Architect
Globalization Center Of Competency - Bidirectional Scripts
IBM Israel
Mobile: +972 52 2554160
From: "Aharon (Vladimir) Lanin" <aharon@google.com>
To: Matitiahu Allouche/Israel/IBM@IBMIL
Cc: Martin J. Dürst <duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp>, Ehsan Akhgari
<ehsan@mozilla.com>, Najib Tounsi <ntounsi@emi.ac.ma>,
public-i18n-bidi@w3.org
Date: 28/02/2012 14:48
Subject: Re: dir=auto makes no sense for descendant user-visible
attributes
Please note that I did not include the "bell or whistle" of the <input> /
<textarea> exception.
On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 2:46 PM, Aharon (Vladimir) Lanin <
aharon@google.com> wrote:
That just makes sure that we have the problem that I brought up. To fix
it, one needs the opposite change, i.e. to say "the value of the dir
attribute of the element or its closest ancestor having an explicit or
default dir attribute value". But I fear that for most people this would
be misleading, since most people think, as you did, that the dir attribute
inherits. They would not know that the only element that has a default dir
value is <bdi>.
So, once again, please consider using the definition with the dir=auto
exception. That is:
The attribsdir attribute determines the directionality in which the text
of the element's attributes must be displayed to the user. For
attribsdir="auto", the direction is computed independently for each
attribute. If attribsdir is not explicitly specified, the element's
attributes must be displayed in the direction specified by the value of
the dir attribute of the closest ancestor of the element (or the element
itself) having an explicit, valid dir attribute with a value other than
"auto". If there is no such element, the attributes must be displayed ltr.
Aharon
On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 2:08 PM, Matitiahu Allouche <matial@il.ibm.com>
wrote:
I think it can fixed as follows.
Instead of (old phrasing):
b. If the element has no attribsdir attribute, the direction of
the text of visible attributes is the same as the value of the dir
attribute of the element or its closest ancestor having a dir
attribute (if the value is "auto", the direction is computed
independently for each visible attribute). If neither the element
nor any ancestor has a dir attribute, it is 'ltr'.
Let's have (new phrasing):
b. If the element has no attribsdir attribute, the direction of
the text of visible attributes is the same as the value of the explicit
(not default) dir
attribute of the element or its closest ancestor having an explicit
(not default) dir
attribute (if the value is "auto", the direction is computed
independently for each visible attribute). If neither the element
nor any ancestor has a dir attribute, it is 'ltr'.
Shalom (Regards), Mati
Bidi Architect
Globalization Center Of Competency - Bidirectional Scripts
IBM Israel
Mobile: +972 52 2554160
From: "Aharon (Vladimir) Lanin" <aharon@google.com>
To: Najib Tounsi <ntounsi@emi.ac.ma>
Cc: Matitiahu Allouche/Israel/IBM@IBMIL, "Martin J. Dürst" <
duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp>, Ehsan Akhgari <ehsan@mozilla.com>,
public-i18n-bidi@w3.org
Date: 28/02/2012 12:52
Subject: Re: dir=auto makes no sense for descendant user-visible
attributes
Oops, I just realized that there is a problem with the simplified
formulation. The <bdi> element has dir=auto by default. Thus, the title in
<html dir=rtl><bdi dir=auto title="C++"> will be displayed as "C++", but
the title in <html dir=rtl><bdi title="C++"> will be displayed as "++C",
even though <bdi> is supposed to be the same as <bdi dir=auto>.
I am not sure how to fix this in the simplified formulation while keeping
it simple.
Please note that my formulation *with* the dir=auto exception does not
suffer from this problem. And I am still convinced that it will usually
give better results.
Thoughts?
Aharon
On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 11:02 AM, Najib Tounsi <ntounsi@emi.ac.ma> wrote:
Aharon (Vladimir) Lanin wrote:
Ok, so how about we propose it as you have phrased it, but afterwards also
list a number of optional "bells and whistles" (input/textarea exception,
dir=auto exception, the more complicated syntax). Let the editor reject
them. He enjoys doing that anyway :-)
Ehsan, Najib: is Mati's formulation acceptable to you?
Yes! This proposal seems clear to me too. I support it. No more need of
‫ and ‬ :-)
Aharon
On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 3:50 PM, Matitiahu Allouche <matial@il.ibm.com
<mailto:matial@il.ibm.com>> wrote:
Thanks to Aharon for improving the phrasing of my proposal. I now
phrase it as follows:
a. If the element has an attribsdir attribute, the value of this
attribute determines the direction of the text of each visible
attribute (for attribsdir="auto", the direction is computed
independently for each attribute).
b. If the element has no attribsdir attribute, the direction of
the text of visible attributes is the same as the value of the dir
attribute of the element or its closest ancestor having a dir
attribute (if the value is "auto", the direction is computed
independently for each visible attribute). If neither the element
nor any ancestor has a dir attribute, it is 'ltr'.
I prefer this simpler specification even at the cost of what
Aharon calls a loss of usability. In fact, this loss of usability
is that with my spec it is necessary to specify a value for
attribsdir in cases when this would not be needed with Aharon's
specification. There is no case that can be handled with Aharon's
spec and cannot be handled with mine.
Simple wins, IMHO.
Aharon wrote: "I presume this means that you would be against
allowing attribsdir to take a more complicated (explicit) value
like "title:ltr;placeholder:rtl", correct?"
I think that this a nice syntactic format, but since it has not
found its place in HTML until now, and since it is possible to
express the same meaning with formats already existing in HTML, I
would rather not introduce it, to say nothing on the fact that its
chances to be accepted by the WHATWG seem very slim.
Shalom (Regards), Mati
Bidi Architect
Globalization Center Of Competency - Bidirectional Scripts
IBM Israel
Mobile: +972 52 2554160 <tel:%2B972%2052%202554160>
From: "Aharon (Vladimir) Lanin" <aharon@google.com
<mailto:aharon@google.com>>
To: Matitiahu Allouche/Israel/IBM@IBMIL
Cc: Ehsan Akhgari <ehsan@mozilla.com
<mailto:ehsan@mozilla.com>>, Martin J. Dürst
<duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp <mailto:duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp>>,
public-i18n-bidi@w3.org <mailto:public-i18n-bidi@w3.org>
Date: 27/02/2012 14:09
Subject: Re: dir=auto makes no sense for descendant
user-visible attributes
------------------------------------------------------------------------
See below
On Sun, Feb 26, 2012 <tel:2012> at 5:13 PM, Matitiahu Allouche
<_matial@il.ibm.com_ <mailto: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>א<span
dir=ltr>bc</span>ד</span> is *not* the same as <span
dir=ltr>א<span>bc</span>ד</span> (the first comes
out דbc×, while the second comes out ×bcד).
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 ‎ or ‏ 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_ <tel:%2B972%2052%202554160>
From: Ehsan Akhgari <_ehsan@mozilla.com_
<mailto:ehsan@mozilla.com>>
To: "Aharon (Vladimir) Lanin" <_aharon@google.com_
<mailto:aharon@google.com>>
Cc: _public-i18n-bidi@w3.org_
<mailto:public-i18n-bidi@w3.org>, Martin J. Dürst
<_duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp_ <mailto: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/_>
On Thu, Feb 23, _2012_ <tel:2012> at 11:53 PM, Aharon (Vladimir)
Lanin <_aharon@google.com_ <mailto: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_ <tel:2012> 6:11 PM, "Ehsan Akhgari"
<_ehsan@mozilla.com_ <mailto: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_ <tel:2012> at 6:49 AM, Aharon (Vladimir)
Lanin <_aharon@google.com_ <mailto: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_ <tel:2012> at 11:32 AM, "Martin J. Dürst"
<_duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp_ <mailto:duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp>> wrote:
On 2012/02/23 1:11, Ehsan Akhgari wrote:
On Wed, Feb 22, _2012_ <tel:2012> at 10:04 AM, Aharon (Vladimir)
Lanin<_aharon@google.com_ <mailto: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.
--
Najib TOUNSI (tounsi at w3.org)
W3C Office in Morocco (http://www.w3c.org.ma/)
Ecole Mohammadia d'Ingénieurs, BP. 765 Agdal-RABAT Morocco
Mobile: +212 (0) 661 22 00 30
Received on Tuesday, 28 February 2012 20:24:21 UTC