Re: Checkpoint 3.7: Big Hurdle for Double-AA/Triple-AAA Compliance

"...Does Unicode (or ISO 8859-1 which is what most older user agents
support) include distinct opening and closing single quotation marks?"

Unicode has the correct opening and closing quotation marks. 
So people can use them (e.g., with numerical character references).
ISO-8859-1 doesn't have the marks used in English, but has of other
languages.

I think that the checkpoint should e splitted into 
"do not use BLOCKQUOTE for formatting" and 
"use Q for short quotations" (sorry for using neutral quots) 

I think that everybody agrees on the first.

Concerning the second, Using Q is better than 
hardcoding the quot characters because
1. It is more informative (machine understandable)
2. More flexible rendering. May be affected by user's stylesheet.
3. Author doesn't have to bother in matching the quots, or choosing 
the correct ones when nesting (less room for errors).

People who insist on backward compatibility will probably insist on
using neutral quots, as both Q and unicode character references 
are not supported in some browsers.

Regards,

Nir Dagan

http://www.nirdagan.com
mailto:nir@nirdagan.com
tel:+972-2-588-3143

"There is nothing quite so practical as a good theory."
-- A. Einstein

On Fri, 23 Jul 1999, Jason White wrote:

> Does anyone have a suggestion as to how this issue can best be resolved?
> As explained in an earlier message, there are problems with Ian's
> suggestion to use the " character entity instead of the Q element to
> denote in-line quotations. Specifically, I have argued that correct
> braille presentation requires maintenance of the distinctions between
> double and single, opening and closing quotation marks respectively; and I
> am unaware of a backward-compatible means of doing so. Does Unicode (or
> ISO 8859-1 which is what most older user agents support) include distinct
> opening and closing single quotation marks?
> 
> If not, I think the best solution would be to leave the requirement in
> checkpoint 3.7 as is.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

Received on Friday, 23 July 1999 01:57:14 UTC