RE: FPWD of Additional Requirements for Bidi in HTML

[chair hat on]

The Internationalization WG is working to produce this document "Additional Requirements for Bidi in HTML". It is not a deliverable of the HTML WG and its target status is WG-Note. This effort originally was external to W3C; by bringing it into the International Activity, we hope to broaden access and improve communications between the interested parties. 

Our WG particularly hopes that this document will be helpful to the HTML5 effort. It is our goal to complete this work as quickly as possible, within the next few weeks, at which point there may be specific requirements that bear upon HTML and which would be addressed in the normal way in the HTML-WG process. Some requirements may instead have more bearing for content authors and may form the basis for future FAQ/tutorial material.

Our WG requests that anyone interested in these issues please carefully read the document and supply comments via the public-i18n-bidi@w3.org list.

Addison Phillips
Globalization Architect -- Lab126
Chair -- W3C Internationalization WG

Internationalization is not a feature.
It is an architecture.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-i18n-core-request@w3.org [mailto:public-i18n-core-
> request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Sam Ruby
> Sent: Sunday, March 07, 2010 10:09 AM
> To: Maciej Stachowiak
> Cc: Richard Ishida; public-html@w3.org; public-i18n-core@w3.org;
> Philippe Le Hegaret
> Subject: Re: FPWD of Additional Requirements for Bidi in HTML
> 
> Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> > Hi Richard and I18N WG,
> >
> > On Mar 5, 2010, at 3:29 AM, Richard Ishida wrote:
> >
> >> HTML folks,
> >>
> >> Just to let you know the expectations of the i18n WG wrt this
> >> document[1] which was published yesterday.  We do not expect the
> HTML
> >> WG to review and comment on it just yet.
> >>
> >> The document is still in early draft, and was published to
> facilitate
> >> ongoing feedback from bidi experts and i18n folks. It also
> contains
> >> some explicitly identified open issues.
> >>
> >> The plan is to obtain feedback as soon as possible from bidi
> experts
> >> and internationalization folks, then issue a new draft that
> >> incorporates the results of those discussions.  Only at that
> point do
> >> we plan to put the proposals to the HTML community and seek
> their
> >> comments and commitment. Depending on the amount of discussion
> that
> >> takes place, we would hope to publish the second draft in about
> a
> >> month from now.
> >>
> >> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/WD-html-bidi-20100304/

> >
> > It's a little quirky to deliver feedback on the HTML WG's
> deliverables
> > in the form of a Working Draft developed elsewhere, and it might
> have
> > been better to make us more aware of this effort ahead of time.
> (I, for
> > one, was surprised to see  seventh Working Draft published with
> ours and
> > was puzzled that I hadn't seen it before.)
> 
> I don't believe that it has been established that bidi is an HTML
> WG
> deliverable.  All that I have seen stated is "Seven Documents
> Related to
> HTML Published".
> 
> http://www.w3.org/News/2010#entry-8735

> 
> > That being said, as long as the HTML WG gets the feedback in the
> end,
> > I'm not too concerned with the process of developing it.
> 
> I would modify that statement: as long as the groups are working
> together, I'm not concerned about which group publishes it.
> 
> >  From reading over this draft, it seems to me that most of this
> feedback
> > is ready to be delivered to the HTML WG right now. I see many
> specific
> > points that identify a specific problem in great detail, outline
> why the
> > current state of the spec doesn't work, and propose at lest one
> workable
> > solution. That's more than enough data to go into a bug report.
> >
> > I would expect that bug reports on these issues would most likely
> > resolved expeditiously to everyone's satisfaction, and without
> any great
> > controversy. The only potential problems I see are with details
> of
> > syntax(*). I think those are best resolved within the HTML WG. I
> also
> > suspect some of the comments may be issues for CSS, not HTML, for
> > example the treatment of list markers. HTML completely defers to
> CSS on
> > list rendering. Either way, it would be good to identify those
> kinds of
> > issues ASAP rather than continuing to develop in a silo.
> >
> > If the I18N WG would like these issues addressed before Last Call,
> I
> > strongly recommend delivering the feedback to the HTML WG as soon
> as
> > possible, ideally in the form of bug reports, one per distinct
> issue.
> 
> Against which component would such bugs be filed?
> 
> What I see published for bidi seems to meet the criteria for a
> vendor-neutral applicable specification, as described by section
> 2.2.2
> of the HTML5 Working Draft.
> 
> Given that this document has been approved for publication as a
> FPWD, I
> would suggest that for the moment the right approach is that
> technical
> comments follow the process defined in the draft itself: namely,
> "Please
> send comments on this document to public-i18n-bidi@w3.org", and
> that
> procedural arguments over venue (e.g., "I think those are best
> resolved
> within the HTML WG") be directed to the Interaction Domain lead.
> 
> > Regards,
> > Maciej
> >
> > * - Examples of potential syntactic quibbles: (1) It would
> probably be
> > better for the "bdi" attribute to act like a normal HTML boolean
> > attribute where only presence or absence is relevant, not the
> value; (2)
> > the name "bdi" is a bit obscure for a global attribute and may be
> prone
> > to typos; (3) "submit_dir" does not match the usual conventions
> for HTML
> > attribute naming. I raise these not to suggest changes to the
> draft but
> > rather to point out that the HTML WG needs to review these issues
> and
> > should do so ASAP.
> 
> I do encourage members of the HTML WG to review the draft, and
> report
> any issues that they find.
> 
> - Sam Ruby

Received on Sunday, 7 March 2010 19:39:07 UTC