RE: [WIDGET PC] i18n comment 6: Use of its:dir

(personal response)

> The concerns are that people won't implement ITS 

Saying "we're concerned no one will implement ITS" makes it sound like some exotic specification that may not find community support. But plenty of Recs have 'dir' and 'span' attributes/elements to allow for proper bidi markup. Having ITS define these for you in a conveniently referenced spec is a novelty, but shouldn't be used as a reason for "people" to think they "don't need to implement it" :-).

I believe that most widget engines can easily implement these features because they already leverage the text layout capabilities of a browser, of the host operating system, or both and because most JavaScript engines already implement Unicode bidi. Setting base direction or directional override from markup is a small matter of implementing the parsing---not a total rewrite. If you specify it, I believe it can happen.

I recognize that your WG is merely noting that the feature is "at risk". I believe the I18N WG would object to its removal and urge the webapps community to include bidi support.

> The concerns are that people won't implement ITS (or that authors
> can
> use the appropriate Unicode markers to achieve the same thing as
> ITS).

We have a FAQ about that. In fact, we just announced it a few minutes ago. Please see [1] for links.

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-international/2009JulSep/0001.html


Best Regards,

Addison

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

Internationalization is not a feature.
It is an architecture.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Marcos Caceres [mailto:marcosc@opera.com]
> Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 8:49 AM
> To: Phillips, Addison
> Cc: ishida@w3.org; public-Webapps@w3.org; public-i18n-core@w3.org
> Subject: Re: [WIDGET PC] i18n comment 6: Use of its:dir
> 
> 
> 
> On 7/10/09 5:40 PM, Phillips, Addison wrote:
> > (personal response)
> >> Fantastic. Unfortunately, implementer feedback has raised
> concerns
> >> about ITS and so the WG has put ITS features "at risk" (and
> marked
> >> as
> >> such in the soon to be released CR spec). We will see what
> happens
> >> in
> >> CR; hopefully implementers will understand the value of
> >> implementing
> >> it.
> >>
> >
> > I noticed that in the transreq. Obviously the I18N WG is
> concerned about any such feedback: can webapps please share what
> the concerns are? I know that many developers consider bidi support
> "kind of scary"; I hope that the implementation issues are not
> simply fear driven. Is there some way that the Internationalization
> community can support implementers?
> >
> 
> The concerns are that people won't implement ITS (or that authors
> can
> use the appropriate Unicode markers to achieve the same thing as
> ITS).
> 
> Kind regards,
> Marcos

Received on Friday, 10 July 2009 19:18:46 UTC