Re: Memo from ruby disucssion with Roland

fantasai, Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:21:03 +0100:
> On 02/22/2012 05:37 AM, Roland Steiner wrote:

>> With 'rspan' or <rtc>, there is no semantic link from the base to 
>> the text(s). For example:
>> 
>>     <ruby><rb>東<rb>京<rtc>とうきょう</ruby>

> The assertion that there's no semantic link from the base text is
> not true -- the association is implied by the structure of the markup.
> We do this for tables, for <dl> markup, etc. As long as it's unambigously
> defined what associates with what, there is no problem and it's perfectly
> semantic.

In general, I am in favor implicit mark-up semantics rather than 
idrefs, for marking up relationships. That said, I can see 3 advantages 
of @for - compared with 'the competition': 

1. It might fit with the current non-conformance of <rb>, as it 
   allows you to do things like this:
   <ruby><span   id=a>abc</span><span    id=b>def</span>
         <rt      for=a >ABC</rt><rt    for=b>DEF</rt>
   </ruby>
   Problem: What if @for points outside ruby?

2. In the accessibility community it seems to be a tendency to 
   favor the use of idrefs for 'bolting' relationships. 
   Problem: Keeping for/id in sync etc.

3. In case of double ruby, then instead of a fantasai's
   spanning <rpc> notes:
   <ruby><span   id=a>abc</span><span    id=b>def</span>
      <rt      for=a >ABC</rt><rt    for=b>DEF</rt>
      <rpc> for both #a and #b </rpc>
   </ruby>

   One could instead do:
   <ruby><span   id=a>abc</span><span    id=b>def</span>
      <rt      for=a >ABC</rt><rt    for=b>DEF</rt>
      <rt bottom='true' for='a b'> for both #a and #b </rt>
   </ruby>

   [As you can see, here I also used a @bottom to 
    tell that it should go at the bottom side - see below.]

> So, if out-of-band ruby annotations are needed, I suggest creating
> a format optimized for that, rather than repurposing CSS.
+1

> You've seen http://fantasai.inkedblade.net/weblog/2011/ruby/

> right?

* Focusing on the need for <rb>: the most RUBY specific reason [as 
opposed to more general reasons] to include <rb>, seem to be what you, 
fantasai, at the bottom of your page - conclusion section - refer to as 
'multi-pair word ruby': Without <rb>, one cannot have a mark-up based 
semantic relationship. Well, one could, but then would need to use e.g. 
a @for attribute. [Did Ian dismiss this too - the multi-pair use case? 
Or should we not think about Ian ...]

* Extra use case for double ruby: Sometimes it is asked for support for 
inline <table> elements inside <p>. In fact, when investigating how 
<ruby> is actually done on the Web, we do see that authors retract to 
using <table> for this purpose — both for double and single ruby. I do 
think that ruby, both simple and double, sometimes could be an answer 
when authors jump to think that <p> should have been able to contain 
tables.

* Double ruby technical: Attributes. Instead of adding <rtc>, 
  could it be an option to add e.g. a boolean attribute to <rt>,
  in order to signify that it should be placed at the bottom?
  Example:
   <ruby>
    <rb>base1<rb>base2<rt>note1<rt>note2<rt bottom>NOTE1<rt bottom>NOTE2
   </ruby>

   A spanning attribute as well:
   <ruby>
    <rb>base1<rb>base2<rt>note1<rt>note2<rt spanning>NOTE
   </ruby>
-- 
Leif H Silli

Received on Wednesday, 22 February 2012 14:32:42 UTC