Re: Comments on Bidi Overview document

Thanks for the comments, Mati. Notes below:

On 20/12/2012 18:59, Matitiahu Allouche wrote:
> Comments on document
> http://www.w3.org/International/tutorials/new-bidi-xhtml/Overview-inline-2.en.php
>
> 1)In section “how the bidi algorithm works”, the subsection “Base
> direction (direction of the context)” specifies how to implement
> direction in  HTML elements, while this is supposed to be addressed in
> section “Handling inline bidirectional text in HTML” according to the
> box starting “If you are in a hurry”.
> There are other HTML references in other paragraphs of this section.
> IMHO, this section dedicated to the bidi algorithm should stay with
> general bidi concepts, not modalities of a specific implementation.

I partially agree with you. I moved the last paragraph down the document 
to the description of the dir attribute. I left in the simpler second 
para because it will help people concretise what it is we are talking 
about here, especially those with limited technical knowledge.

>
> 2)In subsection “Neutral characters”, the paragraph starting with “A
> neutral character between” leaves a doubt about what would happen to 2
> or more neutrals bracketed between two strongly typed characters. I
> suggest to replace by “One or more neutral characters between”.
> The occurrence of several neutral characters is mentioned in the
> paragraph starting “Even if there are several neutral characters”, but
> this is a bit late for my taste.

Done.

>
> 3)In subsection “Embedding changes to the base direction”, I suggest to
> modify the example saying “The title is !xxx in Arabic” so that the
> Arabic title is put between double quotes, as follows:
>     The title is “!xxx” in Arabic.
> This will allow to explain the distinction between the closing double
> quote which is part of the English context and the exclamation mark
> which is part of the Arabic phrase.

I specifically avoided doing that, actually, in order to keep things 
simple for the uninitiated. We do mention that later.

>
> 4)In the same subsection, in the example starting with “The translation
> is”,  persons who do not read Arabic cannot judge why the rendering
> should be as specified. I suggest to first present a pure English
> version of the example, then the translated version.

I don't want people to analyse this in too much detail - I'm trying to 
just point out how directional runs are affected by base direction.  So 
I changed the following paragraph to say:

"Don't worry too much about the meaning at this point: the issue is that 
on the bottom line, without a definition of the base direction, the 
directional runs inside the quote are ordered from left to right."

>
> 5)In subsection “Numbers”, the example shows that there are 2
> directional runs. I think that it would be more correct to show 4
> directional runs, since the number is a LTR run which breaks the Arabic
> words into 2 separate RTL runs.
> Alternatively, you could add a line below the line with the 2 arrows,
> showing an arrow pointing rightward under the digits, like follows:
>        one two yyyy 1234 xxx
>        ------> <------------
>
>                     --->

Done.

>
> 6)In section “HTML 4”, when one example contains more than one
> occurrence of LTR or RTL text, I suggest to represent them as e.g.
> “RTL-TEXT-1”, “RTL-TEXT-2”, etc… to avoid confusion.

Done.

>
> 7)A nit: in section “LRM/LRM”, the official names for U+200E and U+200F
> should have no hyphen before the last word “MARK”.

Indeed. Fixed.

>
> 8)Another nit: in “Fixing use case 1 in HTML 4”,  change “If there is
> already suitable markup to surround the the book title” to “If there is
> already suitable markup to surround the book title”.
> There are other occurrences of “the the”, just look for them.

Fixed, in 3 places.


>
> 9)In the following “advanced usage notes”, “an left-to-right page”
> should be “a left-to-right page”.

Fixed.

>
> 10)Last paragraph of “Use case 1” says: “Marking up with bdi tags avoids
> you needing to figure out whether there is likely to be a potential
> issue, due to incorrect assignment of direction by the auto value,
> avoids the need to change markup as further edits are made, and avoids
> you having to remember two different markup approaches.”
> I fail to see the rationale for the first 2 statements.

We may completely change that section before it is published. I'll check 
it again later.

>
> 11)In section “Punctuation at the end of an opposite-direction phrase”,
> we find “Note that it makes no difference that there are actually two
> punctuation characters and a space in this position - they are all
> neutrals and so are all affected the same way”.
> I can find only one punctuation character in this position of the example.

Good catch. Removed.

>
> 12)In the MAC address example, we see “4a” in the example but “04” in
> the explanation text which precedes it.
> In the HTML 4 code  below, we find “04” again. Same for the HTML 5 code.

Fixed.

Best,
RI


>
> <end of comments>
>
> *Shalom (Regards),  Mati*
>

-- 
Richard Ishida
Internationalization Activity Lead
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)

http://www.w3.org/International/
http://rishida.net/

Received on Thursday, 24 January 2013 19:19:33 UTC