Feedback for rb from html5j.org (was RE: HTML5 and ruby

> From: Richard Ishida [mailto:ishida@w3.org]
> Here are some key questions:
> 
> 1. do we need rb for simple ruby, or will span suffice? (take into account the use case
> related to fallback)
> 
> 2. do we need rb and rtc for complex ruby support, or is it sufficient to rely on a mixture
> of recursive ruby markup plus a second <rt> element (depending on the use case)?

I've got two replies from html5j.org ML[1].

One guy said that double-sided ruby is used more than most people would expect. Kanji/reading/English is one use case. The other case is when to put ruby for the pseudo-Chinese reading (On-yomi in Japanese) and Japanese reading (Kun-yomi in Japanese.) He wonders why HTML5 doesn't have rb to express double-sided ruby and strongly wishes it back.

The other guy also pointed out English/reading/Japanese case occurs, and to express that, having optional rb makes markups match better to the author's intention. He also pointed out issues about poor screen readers Leif and Margin mentioned. If a screen reader reads both base and ruby-text--unfortunately there are a lot of such screen readers today--markups written in Fallback case works better than the current HTML5 model (とうきょうとうきょう is easier to listen than とうとうきょうきょう.) I think that also clarifies author's intention of where word breaks that screen readers might be able to do better job.

This screen reader discussion reminds me that CSS WG had related discussion about a year ago for CSS Speech Module[2]. During the discussion[3], we wanted this markup:
<ruby>
  tomato
  <rt>toe-MAH-toe</rt>
</ruby>
to read "toe-MAH-toe". If rb is implied to base text, it becomes much cleaner, but we had to make sure things work that way without rb[4]. CSS Speech is okay now by the work, but I hope this be one of the proofs for the needs of each of ruby-base and ruby-text being selectable separately. Otherwise other related specs/features need extra work.

[1] https://groups.google.com/group/html5-developers-jp/browse_thread/thread/e17119e94c726961?hl=ja

[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-speech/

[3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2011Feb/0105.html

[4] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2011Feb/0116.html


Regards,
Koji

Received on Saturday, 21 January 2012 19:53:21 UTC