[1.2T-LC] i18n comment 6: Direction and bidi-override attributes

Comment from the i18n review of:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-SVGMobile12-20080915/

Comment 6
At http://www.w3.org/International/reviews/0810-svg-tiny/
Editorial/substantive: S
Tracked by: RI

Location in reviewed document:
10.4 [httphttp://www.w3.org/TR/SVGMobile12/text.html#TextElement]

Comment: 
The direction and bidi-override attributes are needed to establish a context so that the bidi algorithm can work. My understanding is that this was omitted unintentionally and will be put back in. This comment is based on the latest editor's copy of the document (ie. more recent than the version most of these comments apply to.)

 
"In most cases, the bidirectional algorithm from [UNICODE] produces the desired result automatically, and overriding this algorithm properly is usually quite complex. Therefore, in most cases, authors are discouraged from assigning values to these properties."

 
Actually, it's only in simple cases that you get the desired result automatically. For example, just put a period or other punctuation at the end of any Arabic or Hebrew text, and it will appear in the wrong place (at the right side) unless you have set the directional context, since the default is LTR. You could say that in *many* cases the bidi algorithm produces the result automatically, in which case it is not necessary to use the markup, but you can't say that in most cases authors are discouraged from using the attributes. Usually, however, it is not complex to use these properties, either. If you're working in Arabic, you'll most likely need to set the direction to RTL most of the time.

 
Perhaps it would be helpful to provide an example of the most straightforward case, ie. unicode-bidi="embed" direction="rtl", that people can cut&paste.

 
What *would really* be helpful, would be the possibility of declaring the direction at the top of the document, ie. in the svg element, and allowing it to cascade from there to all text elements. In *that* case, you are much less likely to need to set the properties on each text element, when working in a right-to-left script. (And it will save a lot of typing for the poor Middle Eastern authors.)

Received on Friday, 10 October 2008 19:43:32 UTC