- From: Rasha Morgan <rasham@eg.ibm.com>
- Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 16:15:41 +0300
- To: momoi@netscape.com (Katsuhiko Momoi)
- Cc: Ahmed Talaat <AHMEDT@eg.ibm.com>, Martin Duerst <duerst@w3.org>, Gilan Felfela <gilanf@eg.ibm.com>, Mark Davis <mark@macchiato.com>, Mark Davis <mark.davis@us.ibm.com>, Matitiahu Allouche <matial@il.ibm.com>, public-iri@w3.org, Simon Montagu <smontagu@netscape.com>, Tarek Abou Aly <Tarek_Abou-Ali@eg.ibm.com>, Yung-Fong Tang <ytang0648@aol.com>
Hello Momoi-san,
IE reads the system settings and accordingly decides about the numeric
shapes.
However Netscape/Mozilla try to be system independent, so to solve this
they defaulted to contextual shaping, this might not be the best option in
some Arab countries, so what can be done is to default to contextual when
the default browser locale is for one of the Arab countries which use
National digits.
Or optimally to add in the preference an item for the Arabic numeric shapes
for the user to choose.
Have a nice day
Rasha Morgan
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Hardest victory is victory over self. Aristotle
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Advisory Globalization Specialist, team leader
IBM Egypt Branch,
Pyramids Heights,
Building No. 10
22 Km. Cairo - Alex. Desert Road,
Guiza, Egypt.
Tel: SB: +202 5392539 ext 1409 DID: +202 536 1409
Fax. +20 2 539 2505
E-mail : rasham@eg.ibm.com
VM : RASHAM at IBMEG
http://ctdc.cairo.ibm.com/CairoTDCWebsite/home.jsp
momoi@netscape.co
m (Katsuhiko To: Matitiahu Allouche/Israel/IBM@IBMIL
Momoi) cc: Martin Duerst <duerst@w3.org>, Rasha Morgan/Egypt/IBM@IBMEG,
public-iri@w3.org, Ahmed Talaat/Egypt/IBM@IBMEG, Gilan Felfela/Egypt/IBM@IBMEG, Tarek
08/05/2003 07:03 Abou Aly/Egypt/IBM@IBMEG, Mark Davis/Cupertino/IBM@IBMUS, Mark Davis
ã <mark@macchiato.com>, Simon Montagu <smontagu@netscape.com>, Yung-Fong Tang
<ytang0648@aol.com>
Subject: Re: Closing issue [arabicnum-03]
Mati,
Thanks for your comments. My comments below.
Matitiahu Allouche wrote:
If I remember well, the preference for number shaping appears (in
Windows
Regional Options) only when the selected locale is an Arabic one.
This
preference determines whether digits (hexa 30 to 39) should be
presented
always as European numbers, always as Hindi numbers or depending on
context. Depending on context means that hexa 30 to 39 are presented
as
European numbers when the last previous letter was not an Arabic one,
and
as Hindi numbers if it was an Arabic letter.
This is not undefined, nor unpredictable and varying, to use Martin's
words.
Section 13.3 in TUS 3.0 only deprecates using Numeric Shape selectors
(U+206E and U+206F) to control the glyphs used for presenting
numbers. The
last sentence says "This state (nominal) is the default state in the
absence of any numeric shape selector or a higher-level protocol",
which
leaves the door open to selection of digit glyphs based on a
higher-level
protocol. Preferences at the Operating System level or at the
browser
level are definitely a higher-level protocol, and they should be
considered good Unicode citizens, IMHO.
So it seems to me that Netscape is performing correctly (I don't
remember
how it sets its default handling of numeric shaping, probably not
based on
Windows preferences, since it tries to be platform independent), and
IE
behaves differently because it relies on the Windows preferences,
which on
a Japanese-locale will always select the European glyphs for numbers.
My experiments on Windows XP-en shows that when the locale is set to
Arabic/Egypt, IE6 and NN7.02 behave exactly the same as far as contextual
numeral changes are concerned, i.e. they both perform numeral changes.
But when the locale is something other than a bidi one, NN7.02 still
performs contextual numeral changes while IE6 does not. This seems to be
what Martin noticed on his Japanese locale Windows.
If the parity with IE6 is what we want, we might change this behavior so
that the pref item, bidi.numeral, will have a value of "1" (i.e. numeral
change occurs) only if the user locale is a bidi one.
- Kat
Shalom (Regards), Mati
Bidi Architect
Globalization Center Of Competency - Bidirectional Scripts
IBM Israel
Phone: +972 2 5888802 Fax: +972 2 5870333 Mobile:
+972 52
554160
To: Martin Duerst <duerst@w3.org>
cc: Rasha Morgan/Egypt/IBM@IBMEG, public-iri@w3.org, Matitiahu
Allouche/Israel/IBM@IBMIL, Ahmed Talaat/Egypt/IBM@IBMEG, Gilan
Felfela/Egypt/IBM@IBMEG, Tarek Abou Aly/Egypt/IBM@IBMEG, Mark
Davis/Cupertino/IBM@IBMUS, Mark Davis <mark@macchiato.com>, Simon
Montagu
<smontagu@netscape.com>, Yung-Fong Tang <ytang0648@aol.com>
Subject: Re: Closing issue [arabicnum-03]
Please refer to the following bug for this issue:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=181711
Rasha, I think you should argue your position in the above bug if you
feel strongly but Simon indicates in his latest comments that Gecko
should follow Section 13.3 of Unicode 3.0 as referred to by Martin.
- Kat
Martin Duerst wrote:
Hello Rasha,
Many thanks for your comments.
At 14:09 03/05/06 +0300, Rasha Morgan wrote:
Hello Martin,
Regarding numeric shapes in the browser, they should
follow the system
settings,
I have a Japanese system, and don't remember having made such
a system setting. And you seem to imply that if such a system
setting is present, all the digits would appear as Arabic
digits. Fortunately for me, that's not the case. Even on the
page
in question (
http://www.w3.org/International/iri-edit/BidiExamples),
only digits in vicinity of Arabic characters change shape.
I'm not sure what the rule/algorithm is that Netscape uses for
this.
I don't like undefined (and therefore unpredictable and
varying)
behavior.
so if it is contextual or national they should appear in
Arabic
digits. Otherwise they should appear in European digits.
Who made up this rule? Unicode clearly states otherwise, as I
already
have explained (see below). And HTML and XML are based on
Unicode.
So Netscape is working properly, please don't ask to
disable this
feature.
also IE behaves the same way.
In my case, IE doesn't, as I have explained before (see below).
Numeric shapes are part of the country culture and should
not be
deprecated.
I haven't said anything that would deprecate Arabic(-Indic)
digits.
Unicode has them, and anybody who wants to use them can use
them.
However, I wanted the digits in my page, which are European
digits,
to be displayed as European digits, and I think any browser (or
other
application, for that matter) that tries to change this behind
my
back is doing something wrong.
Regards, Martin.
Have a nice day
Rasha Morgan
Advisory Globalization Specialist, team leader
IBM Egypt Branch,
----- Forwarded by Rasha Morgan/Egypt/IBM on 06/05/2003
01:18 -----
----- Forwarded by Ahmed Talaat/Egypt/IBM on 04/05/2003
12:47 -----
---------------------- Forwarded by Matitiahu
Allouche/Israel/IBM on
04/05/2003 09:50 ---------------------------
Martin Duerst <duerst@w3.org>@w3.org on 02/05/2003
23:57:44
Sent by: public-iri-request@w3.org
To: public-iri@w3.org
cc:
Subject: Closing issue [arabicnum-03]
This serves to close
http://www.w3.org/International/iri-edit/#arabicnum-03.
I had put this issue on the issues list because in
examples
7-9 of the BidiExamples page
(http://www.w3.org/International/iri-edit/BidiExamples),
I saw Arabic-Indic digits in the Arabic examples rather
than the European digits that I was expecting.
Further examination has shown that this is a browser
issue.
Netscape 7 (/Mozilla) is the only browser that I have
found
that converts digit shapes when displaying them. Tango,
IE6, Safari, and Opera don't change digit shapes.
Section 13.3 (http://www.unicode.org/book/ch13.pdf, p.
320)
of Unicode 3.0 is clear that nominal behavior (not
changing
the glyphs used to display the digits) is correct, and
using national digit shaping would only be acceptable if
using the deprecated and strongly discouraged numeric
shape selectors (which I have of course not used).
So Netscape/Mozilla is wrong here, and should be fixed.
I have told somebody in the i18n team at Netscape.
I have added a note at the top of the BidiExamples page
saying that a browser doing digit shaping correctly
should
be used. I have closed this issue.
Regards, Martin.
--
Katsuhiko Momoi <momoi@netscape.com>
Senior International Manager, Web Standards/Embedding
Netscape Technology Evangelism/Developer Support
--
Katsuhiko Momoi <momoi@netscape.com>
Senior International Manager, Web Standards/Embedding
Netscape Technology Evangelism/Developer Support
Received on Monday, 12 May 2003 09:26:50 UTC