RE: [css3-text] text-underline-position for Mongolian

> There maybe a concept of 'underline' in common use
> but this does not match text-decoration: underline.
> If 'below right' is used, then what is used for overline?
> What happens if Cyrillic and Latin also appear with
> Mongolian in vertical flow?

>From the spec point of view, overline is drawn at the opposite side of underline, so it appears on left.

I can't speak much about Mongolian, but your question applies to Japanese as well. You're right that if you have Latin letters in vertical flow with underline, they could look like overline. I heard some non-Japanese speaking concerns about that. But drawing underline on left in vertical text flow looks more strange to me.

Vertical flow is known to have some problems and inconsistencies when mixed with other scripts, and that was the reason why Japanese has started using horizontal text flow a hundred years ago or so. That said, if you're mixing multiple scripts in vertical flow, you have to make compromises. Rotating Latin letters sideways is a compromise. Some Japanese complaints that "I have to rotate my face when reading Latin letters" and they think putting them upright is the correct behavior, but upright has other problems, so you have to choose which looks better for the content you author.

Latin letters with underline in vertical text flow is also a compromise. I agree it may look strange. But most Japanese word processors have underline and hyperlinks with "below right" behavior for more than 10 years and I haven't heard any complaints about that, so I suppose the choice is good.


Regards,
Koji

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Gresley [mailto:alan@css-class.com] 
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2011 9:15 PM
To: Koji Ishii
Cc: www-style@w3.org; CJK discussion (public-i18n-cjk@w3.org); btmnk0825@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [css3-text] text-underline-position for Mongolian

On 17/03/2011 2:10 PM, Koji Ishii wrote:
> A question was raised at CSSWG F2F[1] about the underline position[2] for Mongolian. I thought I investigated this before, but couldn't find results and therefore contacted a Mongolian student studying Mongolian word processor. Here's a quick summary of his response.
>
> * Mongolian in vertical flow uses underline, on right
> * He's not sure if underline is used for horizontal flow or not
> * By looking at the spec[1], probably 'below right' would be the good 
> value for Mongolian
>
> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2011Mar/0307.html
> [2] http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-text/#text-underline-position
>
>
> Regards,
> Koji


There maybe a concept of 'underline' in common use but this does not match text-decoration: underline. If 'below right' is used, then what is used for overline? What happens if Cyrillic and Latin also appear with Mongolian in vertical flow?

<http://css-class.com/test/css/bidi/mongolian-test1-extra.htm>


--
Alan http://css-class.com/

Armies Cannot Stop An Idea Whose Time Has Come. - Victor Hugo

Received on Thursday, 17 March 2011 13:10:21 UTC