Fwd: Fwd: ISSUE-117: In Widget P&C Spec, need to clarify in the spec that dir attribute does not apply to attributes that are IRIs, Numeric, Keywords, etc. The dir attribute only affects human readable strings.

Richard, Addison - we would greatly appreciate it if the I18N WG would 
please follow-up Marcos' email below. When you do, please include the 
public-webapps mail list.

-Thanks, Art Barstow

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:  Fwd: ISSUE-117: In Widget P&C Spec, need to clarify in the 
spec that dir attribute does not apply to attributes that are IRIs, 
Numeric, Keywords, etc. The dir attribute only affects human readable 
strings.
Date:  Fri, 2 Jul 2010 12:16:33 +0200
From:  ext Marcos Caceres <marcosc@opera.com>
Reply-To:  marcosc@opera.com <marcosc@opera.com>
To:  public-i18n-core@w3.org <public-i18n-core@w3.org>
CC:  public-webapps <public-webapps@w3.org>



Hi members of  the i18n WG,

During implementation, Opera found that I had made a mistake with the
way I has specified how the dir attribute is applied (I had applied it
to all attributes, and then left it up to the user agent to display
the attribute values properly). The problem was that what I had
specified introduced significant overhead because it meant that
directional hints were being derived even for attributes where it made
no sense (e.g., for URIs).

Below is my proposed solution to this issue. If you could find the
time to comment, that would be great. The latest editors draft
incorporates the proposed solution below:

http://http://dev.w3.org/2006/waf/widgets/

Kind regards,
Marcos

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Marcos Caceres<marcosc@opera.com>
Date: Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 6:41 PM
Subject: Re: ISSUE-117: In Widget P&C Spec, need to clarify in the
spec that dir attribute does not apply to attributes that are IRIs,
Numeric, Keywords, etc. The dir attribute only affects human readable
strings.
To: Web Applications Working Group WG<public-webapps@w3.org>


On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 5:09 PM, Web Applications Working Group Issue
Tracker<sysbot+tracker@w3.org>  wrote:
>
>  ISSUE-117: In Widget P&C Spec, need to clarify in the spec that dir attribute does not apply to attributes that are IRIs, Numeric, Keywords, etc. The dir attribute only affects human readable strings.
>
>  http://www.w3.org/2008/webapps/track/issues/117
>

Proposed solution:

I've defined a "Displayable-string attribute: An attribute whose
primary purpose is to convey human readable information, such as the
name element's short attribute and the widget element's version
attribute."

As just stated, the widget element's version attribute becomes a
"displayable-string attribute". So does the short attribute of the
name element.

The author's email attribute is now treated as a keyword attribute
(hence, dir is not applied to it). I know this is not ideal, but it's
a cheap solution and saves having to define yet another type of
attribute.

The name and value of the param attributes are now defined as keyword
attributes (hence, dir is not applied to them).

The dir attribute is now defined as "A keyword attribute used to
specify the directionality in which human-readable text is to be
represented by a user agent (e.g., the text content of the name
element, the description element, and the license element). The
directionality set by the dir attribute applies to the text content
and any displayable string attributes of the element where it is used,
and to child elements in its content unless overridden with another
instance of dir."

The "Rule for Getting a Single Attribute Value" now only returns a
localized string "if and only if the attribute is a displayable-string
attribute". Hence, all attributes are processed as strings and dir has
no effect on them.

The "Rule for Getting a List of Keywords From an Attribute" no longer
returns a localized string (as directionality does not apply to this
kind of attribute).

--
Marcos Caceres
Opera Software ASA, http://www.opera.com/
http://datadriven.com.au

Received on Thursday, 8 July 2010 14:01:17 UTC