RE: Thoughts on ruby

> From: MURATA Makoto (FAMILY Given) [mailto:eb2m-mrt@asahi-net.or.jp]
> Sent: 25 September 2010 05:18
...
> Re: [2]
> As long as rb can be added to HTML5 in a timely manner, I like the
> addition of optional rb elemetns.

I plan to raise a bug this week asking for optional rb markup to be allowed.
On the face of it, it seems an easy and simple addition, if accepted.


> Re: [3]  Some people think that nested ruby elements provide
> ruby text on both sides.  This is syntactically allowed, but HTML5
> says nothing about ruby text on both sides.  I do not think that
> it is more complex than "complex ruby" of XHTML Ruby annotation.
> 
> <ruby >
>   <ruby>東<rt>とう</rt>南<rt>なん</rt></ruby>
>   <rt>たつみ</rt>
> </ruby>

Yes, this is not really so bad.  It's not so powerful as complex ruby, but
perhaps it is good enough for supporting ruby specifically.

Elika, I'm not yet familiar with inline tables in CSS, but I've been
wondering whether they are a better candidate for handling things like
linguistic glosses and such.

I'm beginning to wonder whether we should refocus the scope of ruby markup
and styling to specifically address just ruby needs for CJK.  The current
model was always  vaguely intended to be useable for other things, but
although I've heard numerous people suggest how it could be used for things
other than ruby, I don't think I've really come across a convincing case,
especially given the two rubys per base character limitation.


> 
> It is true that nested ruby never achieves arbitrary spanning.  But
> XML is not good at handling concurrent structures from the beginning.
> 
> > The
> > arbitrary spanning of the XHTML model may be overly complicated for
> what is
> > generally needed in Japanese, but it may prove very useful for other
types
> > of annotation, such as linguistic glosses of Arabic etc. (which I have
seen
> > in the wild).
> 
> I see some values, but are they more than the implementation burden (and
> possibly inefficiency) of complex ruby?  Some implementers say no
> strongly.


...

> Re [5]
> So, do we need "ruby-position: bopomofo-above" and "ruby-position:
> bopomofo-right"?

No. Bopomofo ruby is also special in that (a) it is only used on a character
by character basis, and (2) it always appears to the right of the character,
whether the base orientation is vertical or horizontal.  That's why
'bopomofo' is proposed as one of the ruby-position values (other values
being before and after).

Cheers,
RI

Received on Monday, 27 September 2010 14:17:13 UTC