I18N-ISSUE-35: New attribute: ubi [HTML5-bidi]

I18N-ISSUE-35: New attribute: ubi [HTML5-bidi]

http://www.w3.org/International/track/issues/35

Raised by: Richard Ishida
On product: HTML5-bidi

Expose in HTML the new "isolate" value added to the unicode-bidi style in CSS3 (http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-text-layout/#unicode-bidi), by adding an element attribute tentatively named ubi, for "Unicode Bidi Isolate", as in <span dir="rtl" ubi>.

This is a part of the proposals made by the "Additional Requirements for Bidi in HTML" W3C First Public Working Draft. For a full description of the use cases, please see http://www.w3.org/International/docs/html-bidi-requirements/#bidi-isolation. Here is the proposal made there:

The ubi attribute directionally isolates an inline-display element from its surroundings: neither will affect the bidi ordering of the other, and no part of the surrounding content will get ordered between parts of the element's content. Furthermore, the effects of LRE, RLE, LRO, RLO, and PDF characters appearing in the element never extend beyond it.

This is achieved (via unicode-bidi:isolate) by treating the contents of the element as a separate, independent "paragraph" or paragraphs for the purposes of the bidi resolution within the element. These paragraphs' base direction is the element’s computed direction. For the purpose of the bidi resolution of the element as a whole in its containing paragraph (if any), the element is treated as if it were an Object Replacement Character (U+FFFC).

The attribute would take three values:

- "off", specifying no special action. This is the default except in the two cases indicated below (for which "off" would have to be explicitly specified when no isolation is desired). There is no inheritance.

- "ubi", specifying isolation. (Alternatively, this value could be named "on". We chose "ubi" for similarity with pre-HTML5 boolean attributes, e.g. selected. It is up to the HTML WG to decide which is better.) It is implemented by setting the unicode-bidi CSS property for the element to "isolate" - or "isolate bidi-override" for a <bdo> element. It is the default value for:

  * Elements whose dir attribute value is "auto" (which is being proposed in a separate bug).

  * Block elements with CSS display:inline (for discussion, see http://www.w3.org/International/docs/html-bidi-requirements/#blocks-as-separators).

- empty string, specifying isolation just like the "ubi" value. The empty string value allows specifying the attribute without a value for conciseness, e.g. <span dir="rtl" ubi>.

Applications generating HTML would use ubi routinely on elements that wrap an inserted data string (usually in conjunction with indicating its direction using the dir attribute). In particular, it will be recommended to use ubi on the <a> element once any browsers support it. It is the anticipated frequency of use that mandated the somewhat cryptic but blessedly short name and syntax: ubi.

Although in theory unicode-bidi:isolate could be used directly to achieve the same effect as ubi, the recommended approach will be to use ubi, since the bidi properties of content are an intimate part of the content and should be specified directly on it as HTML mark-up. They are not simply an issue of presentation that should properly be specified separately in CSS. The new unicode-bidi:isolate CSS property value has been added because, like the dir attribute, the ubi attribute has to be implemented via CSS.


Please add comments to bugzilla:
http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=10807

For implementation status see: 
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17nb3wlYkIG9MNtL1mlXVPOVe4QwyApiHRYim3nTi5CE/edit?hl=en&pli=1#heading=h.gvr9hs13svw1


IMPORTANT: This issue was moved from our old review tracking system to the new tracker system. For previous mail relating to this issue, see: http://www.w3.org/Search/Mail/Public/advanced_search?keywords=&hdr-1-name=subject&hdr-1-query=%20new%20attribute:%20ubi&hdr-2-name=from&hdr-2-query=&hdr-3-name=message-id&hdr-3-query=&index-grp=Member__FULL+Public__FULL&index-type=t&type-index=public-i18n-bidi%40w3.org&resultsperpage=20&sortby=date

Received on Monday, 20 June 2011 16:37:02 UTC