Add scripts to XForms input-mode script list in Appendix E

Dear XForms Editors,

This is a Last Call Comment on http://www.w3.org/TR/xforms11/.

Appendix E of this specification (http://www.w3.org/TR/xforms11/#mode),
entitled "Input Modes", should be updated to be in sync with the most
recent list of scripts from Unicode/ISO 10646.

A rough count (using the Unix 'wc' utilty) showed that about 15
scripts are missing from the list of tokens at
http://www.w3.org/TR/xforms11/#mode-values.

A point-by-point comparison with
http://www.unicode.org/Public/5.0.0/ucd/PropertyValueAliases.txt
(look below the line "# Script (sc)") gave the following list
(more than 15 because E.3.1 contains quite a few special values):
(starting with lowercase and converting spaces to camelcase in
line with the currently available tokens (e.g. canaidianAboriginal)).

balinese
buginese
coptic
cypriot
glagolitic
kharoshthi
limbu
linearB
nko
osmanya
phagsPa
phoenician
shavian
sylotiNagri
taiLe
newTaiLue
tifinagh
ugaritic
oldPersian
cuneiform

This list of tokens can be included as is (with "Unicode script name"
in the Comments column), but should be cross-checked to make sure
I didn't miss anything. The text above the table can then be updated
to say "The version of the Unicode Standard that these script name
are taken from is 5.0." instead of "The version of the Unicode Standard
that these script names are taken from is 3.2.".

Many of the scripts (e.g. Cunieform) are not necessarily what you
would expect as your typical XForms input, but some of the tokens
already available in XForms 1.0 also don't have a high probability
of usage, and it's better to be complete than to leave something out
that later may be needed.

Some people may raise the concern that adding these script tokens
will force the spec to go to Last Call again. While this would be
true for any genuinely new feature being added after Last Call,
it is difficult to see why a new Last Call would be needed just
because the list of scripts is being completed. No XForms implementation
is forced to support all of these values anyway, but not including
a value that's currently not supported would create a weird
chicken-and-egg problem.

Regards,      Martin.


#-#-#  Martin J. Du"rst, Assoc. Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University
#-#-#  http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp       mailto:duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp

Received on Tuesday, 27 March 2007 10:06:57 UTC