RE: Bidi space Q&A, [was RE: Agenda I18N Core TF telcon, 2003-06-10 at 17:00 UTC, 10am PST, 1pm EST, 18:00UK]

HI Tex,

Thanks for your comments. See below...

============
Richard Ishida
W3C

tel: +44 1753 480 292
http://www.w3.org/International/
http://www.w3.org/People/Ishida/



> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-i18n-geo-request@w3.org 
> [mailto:public-i18n-geo-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Tex Texin
> Sent: 20 June 2003 09:14
> To: Martin Duerst
> Cc: ishida@w3.org; ian@hixie.ch; public-i18n-geo@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Bidi space Q&A, [was RE: Agenda I18N Core TF 
> telcon, 2003-06-10 at 17:00 UTC, 10am PST, 1pm EST, 18:00UK]
> 
> 
> 
> I agree with Martin's comments.
> Also:
> 1) In the background, is the font for the black text smaller 
> or different? It appears smaller to me and therefore harder 
> to see the spaces. oh, ok I just realized it is an image (I 
> changed text size and it didn't change.) Please make the 
> image larger. (Maybe svg would make size user selectable?)

Yes it's a graphic, otherwise you wouldn't be guarranteed to see the
effect.  Lack of scalability is definitely a problem with putting text
in graphics.  I don't think we can yet expect our audience to have an
SVG plug-in, unfortunately, otherwise I would certainly have preferred
to do it that way.  On my 1280x1024 screen the image already looks a
little larger than text would be, and I chose a clean font too.  I think
this is the smallest it will look for most people.  Of course, on your
1600x1200 laptop screen I can understand that it is getting a little
small.


> 
> 2) Along the lines Martin suggested, I would change:
> Would produce a result that looks as follows, where the arrow 
> indicates the location of the missing space:
> 
> to:
> Produces the following result. The arrow indicates the 
> location of the missing space.

OK

> 
> 3) In the technical detail section, the blue space migrates 
> from behind to the front of the "B". I found myself wondering 
> if the B represented a RTL or LTR character to convince 
> myself that the space would shift as shown. I think it makes 
> a difference but I havent tried it yet.

Yes, that's exactly why I spent ages adding the colours (and changing it
from two to four colours) ;-).  I thought that would be pretty obvious
from reading the text.  Maybe not then.

> 
> 4) The next question I think, is if you have unicode 
> plain-text with bidi controls, and you want to convert to 
> html, what does this information imply about the algorithm to 
> do that? It seems to indicate where you might remove controls 
> and insert markup, and it might not be one for one, to 
> accomodate the space collapse issue.

Interesting question.

> 
> tex
> 
> 
> 
> Martin Duerst wrote:
> > 
> > At 13:36 03/06/18 +0100, Richard Ishida wrote:
> > 
> > >Many thanks for this, Ian.  I have used your information 
> to produce a 
> > >new draft of my Q&A.
> > >
> > >  http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-bidi-space.html
> > 
> > Here are some comments. I have reduced the cross-posting.
> > 
> > I think this is a very good topic for Q&A, a small issue 
> with an easy 
> > answer, supported by the specs.
> > 
> > In the question "Why does my browser" is a good way to 
> connect to the 
> > reader, but this Q&A is for Web authors, and we should get 
> them away 
> > from the impression that their browser is what counts. So "Why do 
> > browsers" is much better. If we want to stay personal, we 
> can add "in 
> > my Web pages" at the end.
> > 
> > Background: reduce the 'may' and 'would', i.e.
> >     "text may appear to collapse" -> "text collapses"
> >     "Would produce a result that looks as follows" ->
> >     "produces the following result"
> > 
> > Alignment of images: I would align them to the left. Especially on
> >     a wide page, it is more difficult for the readers to follow
> >     the flow of the argument.
> > 
> > Answer: "If the previous section describes the look of your code,":
> >     "code" -> "markup"
> > 
> >     Better align the text before and after the example. 
> Currently, we
> >     have 'remove space or dir' before the example, and then
> >     'remove dir or <span>' afterwards. This overlap is confusing.
> > 
> >     I would also add (here or at some other place) that the answer
> >     is a specific instance of two more general principles:
> >     1) Keep your markup tight around the text you mark up.
> >     2) Keep your markup and the text you mark up balanced.
> >        (i.e. don't use (<span>W3C)</span> or so)
> >     These principles are helpful in general, but of particular
> >     importance for bidi markup.
> > 
> > How does it look for me?: Again, this is the wrong viewpoint to
> >     ask for authors. And because we know now what the spec
> >     requests, we can probably reduce the list of examples.
> >     Also, again, 'code' -> 'markup'
> > 
> > Technical detail:
> > 
> >     "Only read this section if you want the gory details about why
> >      this happens.": The title should be enough to help the
> >     readers decide whether they want to read this part.
> > 
> >     "The specifications listed in the sources section below":
> >     Use the actual names, and provide links.
> > 
> > Regards,    Martin.
> 
> -- 
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> Tex Texin   cell: +1 781 789 1898   mailto:Tex@XenCraft.com
> Xen Master                          http://www.i18nGuy.com
>                          
> XenCraft		            http://www.XenCraft.com
> Making e-Business Work Around the World
> -------------------------------------------------------------
>

Received on Friday, 20 June 2003 07:44:09 UTC