Re: [widgets] dir and span elements

Hi Marcos,

On 26 Feb 2010, at 17:44, Marcos Caceres wrote:

> Hi i18n WG,
> I've added the dir attribute and span elements to the Widgets P&C
> Specification, as well as a bunch of examples (which are wrong, so I
> would really appreciate some help with these!).
>
> The dir attribute is specified here:
> http://dev.w3.org/2006/waf/widgets/#global-attributes
>
> The span element is specified here:
> http://dev.w3.org/2006/waf/widgets/#the-span-element
>
> The processing step that defers to the yet to be written [WIDGET-BIDI]
> specification is defined here:
> http://dev.w3.org/2006/waf/widgets/#rule-for-getting-text-content
>
> The specification makes it mandatory that a user agent implement the
> WIDGET-BIDI spec:
>
> "A user agent is an implementation of this specification that also
> supports [XML], [XMLNS], [UTF-8], [DOM3CORE], [SNIFF], [WIDGETS-BIDI],
> and [ZIP]..."
>
> We would appreciate your review and any assistance you can provide.
> In particular, we would appreciate your guidance into what would go
> into the Widgets Bidi specification (i.e., how processing is done for
> dir and span). At the moment, we only have the following text for such
> a specification (based on HTML5's bdo element):
>
> [[
> If an element has the dir attribute set to the exact value ltr, then
> for the purposes of the bidi algorithm, the user agent must act as if
> there was a U+202D LEFT-TO-RIGHT OVERRIDE character at the start of
> the element, and a U+202C POP DIRECTIONAL FORMATTING at the end of the
> element.
>
> If the element has the dir attribute set to the exact value rtl, then
> for the purposes of the bidi algorithm, the user agent must act as if
> there was a U+202E RIGHT-TO-LEFT OVERRIDE character at the start of
> the element, and a U+202C POP DIRECTIONAL FORMATTING at the end of the
> element.
>
> The requirements on handling the span element for the bidi algorithm
> may be implemented indirectly through the style layer.
> ]]

I can live with this, with a few comments:

1. "dir" is now an (optional?) attribute of every element; however,  
previously its usage was limited to elements that contain human- 
readable text content: <author>, <license>, <description>, and <name>.  
Is there a reason for making it global in this manner? E.g. would it  
not make more sense to specify "dir" attributes on these four specific  
P&C elements? I don't see anyone putting "dir" on (e.g.) the height  
attribute, nor would we want to include a test for it for compliance  
with optional spec features.

2. "span" should be allowed as a child element of the <license>  
element as well as for <name>, <description> and <author>.

>
> Thanks again for all your time and help!
>
> Kind regards,
> Marcos
> -- 
> Marcos Caceres
> http://datadriven.com.au
>