RE: Re: Israeli HTML Standard

Hi,

I understand that you got the idea from one of the members of the committee that the Visual will not be a "valid option" for the HTML standard for Hebrew. It is true in the sense that it will be mentioned as an option that exists in the field but is not a part of the standard. 

One of the goals of the committee is to steer to directions that will benefit the Israeli public. If all the browsers will comply to the logical standard it will be much better for us all. So, we are trying to make it happen. 

This is not to say that the other implementations will be "illegal". They will be only "non-standard". People from abroad, people with english browsers, etc. will always have the option to use visual if they want to. Sites should offer both options if they want people to be happy and to cover the maximum of users.

One happy day, in the UNICODE future of things, software coming from the states will be able to have logical seamlessly.  Until then we, as the Israel Bureau of Standards, should try to give a good framework for the future years.

Best Regards,

Moshe Shalom
Internet Manager
Eastronics Ltd.

Email: moshe_shalom@easx.co.il
World Wide Web: http://www.easx.co.il


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From:  David Rashty +972-2-6584848[SMTP:RASHTY@WWW4.HUJI.AC.IL]
Sent:  יום ראשון 15 יוני 1997 09:00
To:  Dani Ilan; Stefan Fuchs; Israel Ervin Gidali; Nati Guedalia; Gil Mor; Mati ALLOUCHE; Moshe Shalom; Yevgenia Palanker; Doron Shikmoni; Martin J. Duerst; Francois Yergeau; Gavin Thomas Nicol; Glenn Adams; www-html@w3.org; Khaled Sherif; Jeff Rosenschein; Chris Wendt; John McConnell; Yaniv Feinberg; Erik van der Poel; Uri Postavsky; Uzzi Ornan; Chris Lilley; Mark H. David; Edward Resnick; ILAN Hebrew List; Jonathan Rosenne
Subject:  Fwd: Re: Israeli HTML Standard

Hi

Most Hebrew web pages in Israel are still using Visual ordering (ISO-8859-8).
This is mainly because the browsers for the Implicit ordering are missing ;
Visual is what work best for all. If the standard will not allows using
Visual ordering (ISO-8859-8) as a possibility it mean that only in Israel,
people that have a Hebrew Version of the operating system will be able to
view this pages. Currently there are many people outside Israel who reads
Hebrew pages on the web and do not have a Hebrew version of the operating
system.

I do agree that Visual ordering of bidirectional text is *not* the best way
to go. However, for the current time until the Unicode standard will be the
dominant and all pages will be using it, the only way to view Hebrew all over
the world is by using the Visual ordering, with all the difficulties that
comes with it.

Most Hebrew web pages use this order not because it is easier to write pages
this way but since they are aware of the problems that comes with the Logical
order. There are some companies in Israel, *with large interest in this
market*  that tries to shift the market to use the Logical order and the fact
is that more and more *new* web sites are coming up with the Visual order

I think that the HTML standard *must* include the Visual standard
(ISO-8859-8) as one of the valid options to create HTML pages and strongly
appose to ignore it.

Sincerely Yours,

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Received on Sunday, 15 June 1997 10:41:46 UTC