FW: web standards project article

Hmm.  Could be a start for a new FAQ: Why is it important for
internationalization to use semantically-, rather than
presentationally-oriented markup?

RI

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

contact info:
http://www.w3.org/People/Ishida/ 

W3C Internationalization:
http://www.w3.org/International/ 

Publication blog:
http://people.w3.org/rishida/blog/
 

-----Original Message-----
From: public-evangelist-request@w3.org
[mailto:public-evangelist-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Richard Ishida
Sent: 28 October 2004 14:38
To: 'Stephanie Troeth'; public-evangelist@w3.org
Subject: RE: web standards project article


Separation of structure and presentation is also important for
internationalization, since presentational aspects don't always carry over
from one script to another - eg. italicisation and bolding are problematic
for Japanese and Chinese in small font sizes, because their characters are
so complicated; monospaced fonts don't work well with scripts like Arabic;
Asian text may express emphasis by using a dot above each character, and
German via inter-character spacing - all things we don't thing about when
writing English. If the information is expressed in semantic terms, and a
style sheet is used, it is *much* easier (and therefore much less costly) to
consistently apply the appropriately different styling during translation
(plus, there is more choice).

By the way, widening this out to include XML, most of us realise that using
<b> and <i> for emphasis in XML is a bad thing, but I've seen developers who
without a thought went on to use <emph type="bold"> or <emph type="italic">
instead of <emph type="normal"> and <emph type="strong">, or some such. Of
course, similar things can be done with classes in HTML.

Note also that use of a semantic-oriented approach will have the additional
benefit of providing more discipline and reason in the way authors use and
apply emphasis and style formatting related to document conventions, because
they need to ask themselves *why* they are wanting to distinguish a
particular part of the text. It also promotes consistency. If a stylesheet
is used it will systematically apply the same presentation to the same types
of information.

(For more on this wrt XML, see
http://people.w3.org/rishida/localizable-dtds/#emphasis.)

RI

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

contact info:
http://www.w3.org/People/Ishida/ 

W3C Internationalization:
http://www.w3.org/International/ 

Publication blog:
http://people.w3.org/rishida/blog/
 
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-evangelist-request@w3.org 
> [mailto:public-evangelist-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Stephanie 
> Troeth
> Sent: 28 October 2004 13:12
> To: 'public-evangelist@w3.org'
> Subject: Re: web standards project article
> 
> 
> Karl Dubost wrote:
> 
> > Yes it's one of the issues of HTML/XHTML which has
> different implications:
> > 
> > * The semantic of XHTML/HTML is not defined as a
> conformance requirement.
> >     Related: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa/2004Oct/0008
> >     It's a very difficult topic that I could explain a
> little bit more
> > if people need it.
> > * How do we explain Semantics of HTML/XHTML?
> > * Do we need a best practices guide?
> > * Should this best practices guide be part of an XHTML
> Specification? 
> > or a separate document? or part of a collective effort for example 
> > done here on this mailing-list?
> 
> Seconding John Colby, yes to all the above.
> 
> Shirley Kaiser has a good article on the subject of HTML, XHTML 
> semantics and structure:
> http://www.brainstormsandraves.com/articles/semantics/structure/
> 
> I think a collective effort would be useful, though lengthy. 
> Perhaps a good way to begin is for a small leading subgroup of 3 or 4 
> people to take a lead on it and present something back to this list 
> for input/discussion?
> 
> cheers,
> -steph
>

Received on Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:01:18 UTC