RE: [WCAG2 TECHS] i18n comment 1: H34 example source direction

Unfortunately, there are still some significant problems with this
technique.

[1] "Unicode right-to-left marks and left-to-right marks can be entered
directly or by means of entities. The character entities for these markers
are"

It would be better to say 'character entity' than 'entity' in the first
sentence.  Also character entities and numeric character references are
different things, so I suggest you say 

"Unicode right-to-left marks and left-to-right marks can be entered directly
or by means of character entities or numeric character references, as shown
here"

(Note also that the Character Model for the WWW recommends the use of hex
NCRs, though I'm not going to insist on that here.)



[2] "Inserting a Unicode right-to-left mark (in this case via the HTML
character entity ‏)"

That's an NCR, not a character entity.  In the example, however, you use
‏ (which *is* a character entity), rather than &#8207.



[3] The shaded example of code is quite confusing, since it suffers from the
very problem you are describing - ie. you haven't used an &rlm! ;-)  The
Arabic runs right to left, but the colon and ‏ are still on the right.
This is a typical problem with trying to represent bidi source text
examples, and it's why I try to avoid them whenever possible.

One way around this is to say "Here is the text *ordered left-to-right in
the sequence you would find in memory or type the text in the editor*" and
apply a <bdo dir="ltr" to the pre element.  That would look better with
Hebrew, since the Arabic will still try to join up. 

To make this easier for you, I created the example for you, in Hebrew at
http://www.www.org/International/2007/11/wai-examples.html (cut and paste
the source text).

On the other hand I strongly recommend that you drop the source code
example, and explain things as I have under "Proposed alternative" in the
same file.

RI







============
Richard Ishida
Internationalization Lead
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)
 
http://www.w3.org/International/
http://rishida.net/blog/
http://rishida.net/

 
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-i18n-core-request@w3.org 
> [mailto:public-i18n-core-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Richard Ishida
> Sent: 16 November 2007 15:43
> To: public-i18n-core@w3.org
> Subject: [WCAG2 TECHS] i18n comment 1: H34 example source direction
> 
> 
>  -----Original Message-----
>  From: Loretta Guarino Reid [mailto:lorettaguarino@google.com]
>  Sent: 04 November 2007 05:09
>  To: Richard Ishida
>  Cc: public-comments-WCAG20@w3.org
>  Subject: Your comments on WCAG 2.0 Public Working Draft of May, 2007
>  
>   -----Original Message-----
>   From: Loretta Guarino Reid [mailto:lorettaguarino@google.com]
>   Sent: 04 November 2007 05:09
>  ...
>   Please review our resolutions for the following comments,  
> and reply to  us by 19 November 2007 at  
> public-comments-wcag20@w3.org to say whether  you are  
> satisfied. Note that this list is publicly archived.
>  ...
>   WCAG 2.0 Editor's Draft of May-October 2007 at  
> http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/WD-WCAG20-20071102/
>   
>  ...
> > ----------------------------------------------------------
> > Comment 6: H34: (example 1) describe that the is placed 
> > immediately alongside the exclamation mark
> > Source: 
> > http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/200
> 7Jun/0042.html
> > (Issue ID: 1964)
> > ----------------------------
> > Original Comment:
> > ----------------------------
> > 
> > Comment from the i18n review of:
> > http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-WCAG20-TECHS-20070517/
> > 
> > Comment 1
> > At http://www.w3.org/International/reviews/0706-wcag2-techniques/
> > Editorial/substantive: E
> > Owner: RI
> > 
> > Location in reviewed document:
> > 
> > H34 
> > 
> [http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-WCAG20-TECHS-20070517/Overview.html#H34]
> > 
> > Comment:
> > The example of source code is problematic, since it assumes a 
> > particular behaviour on the part of the authoring tool (see 
> > the discussion on this at
> > 
> http://www.w3.org/International/geo/html-tech/tech-bidi.html#d2e277 ).
> > 
> > I would recommend just describing that the is placed 
> > immediately alongside the exclamation mark, and showing 
> > before and after examples of the displayed text, as in
> > http://www.w3.org/International/geo/html-tech/tech-bidi.html#r
> i20030726.140315918
> > 
> > Note, also, that for people to appreciate the examples, their 
> > user agent needs to support bidi text display and Arabic 
> > fonts. This is why I am providing a pseudo-arabic version of 
> > the example in our best practices doc.
> > 
> > ---------------------------------------------
> > Response from Working Group:
> > ---------------------------------------------
> > 
>  Response:
>  Thank you for helping us improve this technique and its 
>  example. We have made the following changes:
>  
>  * add to Description (before "The character entities for 
> these markers
>  are..."): "Unicode right-to-left marks and left-to-right 
>  marks can be entered directly or by means of entities."
>  
>  * change order of numeric character entities and named 
>  character entities in the list at the end of the Description.
>  
>  * add after this list: "Due to the bidi algorithm, a source 
>  code editor may not display character entities as expected."
>  
>  * add "Problems with bidirectional source text"
>  (http://www.w3.org/International/geo/html-tech/tech-bidi.html#d2e277)
>  to related resources.
>  
>  * change last sentence above example to :"Inserting a Unicode 
>  right-to-left mark (in this case via the HTML character entity)...
>  
>  * replace named character entity with numeric character 
>  entity in code  of Example 1.
>  
>  * copy the visual ASCII example from
>  http://www.w3.org/TR/i18n-html-tech-bidi/#ri20030218.135304584
>  
> 
>

Received on Friday, 16 November 2007 17:27:36 UTC