Re: [widgets] dir and span elements

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 9:51 PM, Richard Ishida <ishida@w3.org> wrote:
> Hi Marcos,
>
> Thanks for your quick work on this.
>
> I have a few comments. Hope they are helpful...
>
> [1] 7.16. The span Element
> http://dev.w3.org/2006/waf/widgets/#the-span-element
> There may be cases where span is also used to support xml:lang (not just dir).

Ok, the spec now reads:

[[
It is expected that authors will use the span element with the global
attributes. When combined with the dir attribute, the span element can
indicate the textual directionality of text content. In other words,
it allows authors to override the Unicode bidirectional algorithm by
explicitly specifying a direction override, as specified in [BIDI].
When combined with the xml:lang attribute, the span element allows the
author to indicate the particular language used for a subset of text
content within another element.
]]


> [2] same section
> I think the example could be improved by having something inside the span with punctuation (eg. exclamation mark) or such, and maybe the description should be in English - otherwise you'd probably want to put the dir on the widget tag and have English in the span.  Should I try to find another example ?
>

Yes please. One that uses both dir and xml:lang would be very helpful.

>
> [3] same section
> "it allows authors to override the Unicode bidirectional algorithm by explicitly specifying a direction override, as specified in [BIDI]."
>
> There is no link on [BIDI], and there is no [BIDI] reference at the bottom of the page.

Added:
[BIDI] Unicode Standard Annex #9: Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm.
Unicode 5.2.0. M. Davis. 22 September 2009.

> [4] same text
> "it allows authors to override the Unicode bidirectional algorithm by explicitly specifying a direction override, as specified in [BIDI]."
> =>
> "it allows authors to set the base direction for the Unicode bidirectional algorithm, as specified in [BIDI]."
>
> I propose this change because the dir attribute as you define it doesn't have the rlo and lro values that would mean 'override', it has only ltr and rtl, which define the base direction.  I don't know if the 'as specified in...' bit is still relevant, since I don't know what that refers to.
>

Used your text and dropped "as specified in". It now just reads:

"...it allows authors to set the base direction for the Unicode
bidirectional algorithm [BIDI]"

>
> [5] dir attribute
> http://dev.w3.org/2006/waf/widgets/#global-attributes
>
> Any reason that you don't specify rlo and lro values recommend in the ITS spec?  (They aren't use much, but I was wondering whether there was a particular reason that they aren't included.)
>

I didn't added them for that reason (because I had been told that they
are not used much). Do we really need them or can we live without
them? I can definitely add them.

> [6] same section
> "An empty value of dir is used on an element B to override a specification of dir on an enclosing element A, without specifying another direction. Within B, it is considered that there is no directional information available, just as if dir had not been specified on B or any of its ancestors (see fourth example below)."
>
> We discussed this during the i18n telecon.  We think having an empty value is a little odd, given that the direction has to be either ltr or rtl.
>

Ok...

>  (For instance, it has no real effect or meaning in the final example below this text that we can detect.) We also think that is may cause some unintended problems for embedded text by creating inappropriate embeddings. We suspect that what you really need is something that we are about to propose for HTML5 (in a working draft that should hopefully be published as FPWD today), ie. a bdi attribute (bidi isolate).  It will be a little while before that is a stable document, however.
>
> In the meantime, our suggestion is that you drop the empty value for dir, and revisit this in a later version of the spec.

Ok, I have dropped it.

The section now reads:

[[
The dir attribute has no default value in cases were it is invalid or
missing: the base direction is either set explicitly by the nearest
parent element that uses the dir attribute; or, in the absence of such
an attribute, the base direction is inherited from the default
direction of the document, which is left-to-right (see
[Widgets-BIDI]).
]]

We can expand on this in the [Widgets-BIDI] spec.

> [7] same section, examples
> The first example looks a little out of kilter wrt markup. (if you need help to sort it out just shout)
> Who provided the Persian translations? (I'd like to suggest some alternative examples, but I can't translate into Persian.)

My friend Google Translate :)  Help with better examples would be
greatly appreciated.


>
> I hope those comments are helpful.
>

Extremely helpful! thank you all again for your time and help.

Kind regards,
Marcos

-- 
Marcos Caceres
http://datadriven.com.au

Received on Saturday, 6 March 2010 17:07:54 UTC