Re: [XHTML Role] SVG WG LC comments (PR#8038)

Roland and I discussed this last call comment today, and I agreed to 
draft a reply.  Please review this reply so we can discuss it at our 
next teleconference.

Thanks!!

ed@opera.com wrote:
> Hello,
>
> The SVG WG has reviewed the XHTML Role attribute module, W3C Working Draft
> 7 April 2008, http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-role/.
>
> General comments
> ----------------
> It's nice to see an extensible solution that allows other languages to add
> additional roles using the CURIE syntax. The SVG WG looks forward to  
> working
> with WAI PF to define roles suitable for common types of graphics such as  
> maps,
> charts, etc.
>   
The XHTML 2 Working Group has relegated most of the role definition work 
for the XHTML Vocabulary Space to the WAI PF.  So yes, we encourage you 
to work with them to define cohesive vocabulary items either for your 
own private space or in the XHTML space, as appropriate.  In general, we 
encourage all groups to define their own vocabularies.  More on this below.
> It's is a pity that no RelaxNG schema is provided. Please consider adding  
> one.
>   
We do not yet have a RelaxNG modularization methodology.  When we do, 
you can be confident that each XHTML module will get such an 
implementation.  It is notionally on our list as part of XHTML 2 
development.
> Whereas XHTML typically has elements to markup text, the text elements in  
> SVG
> provide no idea about their semantical meaning. Therefore it could be quite
> useful to have some role values for 'paragraph', 'section', etc. This is
> especially useful for the interpretation of documents, if there is no  
> visual
> rendering available due to the capabilities either of the user or the
> user-agent and improves accessibility of non (X)HTML markup languages. Such
> attributes might help to align prose text in SVG in a better understandable
> way in such an additional text view.
>   
We agree that there may be collections of SVG data to which people will 
want to assign semantics via the role attribute.  To the extend that 
these are generalized concepts, you should feel free to reply upon the 
default collection of roles in the XHTML vocabulary.  Beyond that, we 
encourage you (and all groups) to define your own vocabulary using the 
W3C's ontology building blocks and make that vocabulary available to 
your user community.  After all, that is the whole point of the 
extension mechanism.
> For poetry (see discussion for HTML5) in contrast to (X)HTML
> it is typically simple to cover the functionalities of poetry structures
> with or without specific requirements for graphical rendering with SVG,
> but for both  (X)HTML and SVG there is no idea of the semantical
> meaning of the elements used to markup poetry (for
> example 'strophe', '(strophe)line').
>
> To provide any useful functionality with role, it is important to
> have a larger list of predefined values either in the role
> specification itself or in the SVG recommendation it will be used for,
> else it will not be very reliable that the values of role have a meaning
> at all, if every group or any author has to create his own extension,
> it would be a big advantage to collect at least the text related things
> (see above) or even better the already known applications directly in
> the primary list:
> http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml/vocab/#XHTMLRoleModule
>   
See above.  We encourage you to coordinate with the WAI PF group on 
roles that you consider of general use.  Beyond that, please define an 
SVG-specific vocabulary.  Its the best way to ensure that you control 
its evolution and that it gets developed and updated at a pace that your 
group is comfortable with.
> 3. The XHTML Role Attribute
> ---------------------------
>   
>> The following list represents some of the roles defined in the default  
>> vocabulary. They are intended to define regions of the document to help  
>> orient the user.
>>     
>
> Either make it a complete list, or mark the section as informative.
>   
We will make it clearer what items are in the default vocabulary.

Thanks very much for your comments!

-- 
Shane P. McCarron                          Phone: +1 763 786-8160 x120
Managing Director                            Fax: +1 763 786-8180
ApTest Minnesota                            Inet: shane@aptest.com

Received on Saturday, 17 May 2008 16:18:24 UTC