RE: FAQ: CSS vs. markup for bidi support

http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/

============
Richard Ishida
Internationalization Lead
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)
 
http://www.w3.org/People/Ishida/
http://www.w3.org/International/
http://people.w3.org/rishida/blog/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ishida/
 
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steven Pemberton [mailto:steven.pemberton@cwi.nl] 
> Sent: 29 August 2007 09:43
> To: Richard Ishida; 'WWW International'
> Subject: Re: FAQ: CSS vs. markup for bidi support
> 
> Which spec are you quoting from here?
> 
> Steven
> 
> On Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:34:35 +0200, Richard Ishida 
> <ishida@w3.org> wrote:
> 
> > I see
> >
> > "When the user agent claims to support facilities defined 
> within this 
> > specification or required by this specification through normative 
> > reference, it must do so in ways consistent with the facilities' 
> > definition."
> >
> > Where
> >
> > "Facilities are elements, attributes, and the semantics associated 
> > with those elements and attributes."
> >
> > I'm assuming, however, that the facilities' definition is 
> given by the 
> > HTML
> > 4.01 spec.  I'm struggling to find any normative text that says so.
> >
> >
> >
> > RI
> >
> >
> > ============
> > Richard Ishida
> > Internationalization Lead
> > W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)
> > http://www.w3.org/People/Ishida/
> > http://www.w3.org/International/
> > http://people.w3.org/rishida/blog/
> > http://www.flickr.com/photos/ishida/
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: www-international-request@w3.org 
> >> [mailto:www-international-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of 
> Richard Ishida
> >> Sent: 28 August 2007 18:14
> >> To: 'Bert Bos'; 'WWW International'
> >> Cc: 'fantasai'
> >> Subject: RE: FAQ: CSS vs. markup for bidi support
> >>
> >>
> >> > XHTML (application/xhtml+xml), however, *does* have meaning.
> >> > The XHTML specification says pretty much that the meaning of the 
> >> > mark-up is the same as that of similar HTML mark-up.
> >>
> >> Bert, I looked for that in the XHTML 1.0 spec, and I just 
> >> double-checked, but couldn't find it.  Can you point to 
> the relevant 
> >> wording?
> >>
> >> RI
> >> ============
> >> Richard Ishida
> >> Internationalization Lead
> >> W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)
> >>
> >> http://www.w3.org/People/Ishida/
> >> http://www.w3.org/International/
> >> http://people.w3.org/rishida/blog/
> >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/ishida/
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> > -----Original Message-----
> >> > From: Bert Bos [mailto:bert@w3.org]
> >> > Sent: 28 August 2007 16:59
> >> > To: 'WWW International'
> >> > Cc: fantasai; 'Richard Ishida'
> >> > Subject: Re: FAQ: CSS vs. markup for bidi support
> >> >
> >> > On Tuesday 28 August 2007 16:22, fantasai wrote:
> >> > > I was looking at
> >> > >    http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-bidi-css-markup
> >> > > yesterday and noticed that there's still a major error in this
> >> > > section:
> >> > > 
> http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-bidi-css-markup#xhtm
> >> > > l
> >> > >
> >> > > Specifically, because namespacing allows XHTML to be
> >> recognized as
> >> > > XHTML even in compound documents, XHTML 'dir' attributes
> >> > should work
> >> > > in browsers even when the document is served as XML.
> >> >
> >> > That's not so clear. I think you should distinguish 
> known document 
> >> > types from generic XML.
> >> >
> >> > The meaning of every bit of mark-up depends on the context
> >> in which it
> >> > is used, starting from the MIME type of the document as a
> >> whole. E.g.,
> >> > the fact that
> >> >
> >> >     <h:li>The second item.</h:li>
> >> >
> >> > is displayed as
> >> >
> >> >     2. The second item.
> >> >
> >> > is not because the meaning of h:li elements is to 
> display "2.", but 
> >> > because it happens to be the second element in another 
> element that 
> >> > happens to be a list in the context of this document.
> >> >
> >> > Namespaces are no different from attributes in that respect.
> >> > They are more difficult to understand and handle because 
> they are 
> >> > inherited and abbreviated, but otherwise they are just
> >> mark-up, i.e.,
> >> > syntax, without any inherent, context-independent 
> meaning. E.g., a 
> >> > namespace in an XSLT document has a very different function
> >> from one
> >> > in an RDF document, which is again different from a WICD.
> >> >
> >> > It is, of course, bad practice to use namespaces in
> >> unexpected ways in
> >> > different documents, just as it is bad practice to use 
> the "wrong"
> >> > names for elements (you don't call a list item <red-cow>,
> >> even though
> >> > the computer doesn't care), but sometimes it's unavoidable.
> >> >
> >> > Which means, in brief, that seeing an h:dir attribute
> >> outside of XHTML
> >> > (where h is the namespace of XHTML, which I don't know by heart),
> >> > *suggests* that the enclosing element is to be rendered
> >> with a certain
> >> > writing direction, but you can't be sure, unless you 
> start with the 
> >> > MIME type and that MIME type's RFC and work your way through the 
> >> > document with the specification in hand.
> >> >
> >> > A text/xml or application/xml document has, by definition,
> >> no meaning
> >> > other than what the style sheet PI (if any) provides.
> >> > XHTML (application/xhtml+xml), however, *does* have meaning.
> >> > The XHTML specification says pretty much that the meaning of the 
> >> > mark-up is the same as that of similar HTML mark-up.
> >> >
> >> > So I agree that the quoted FAQ is incorrect for XHTML ("dir"
> >> > works without any style rules), but I believe it is correct for 
> >> > generic XML ("dir" needs style rules to work).
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > Bert
> >> > --
> >> >   Bert Bos                                ( W 3 C )
> >> http://www.w3.org/
> >> >   http://www.w3.org/people/bos
> >>  W3C/ERCIM
> >> >   bert@w3.org                             2004 Rt des
> >> Lucioles / BP 93
> >> >   +33 (0)4 92 38 76 92            06902 Sophia Antipolis
> >> Cedex, France
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >
> 
>

Received on Wednesday, 29 August 2007 11:06:41 UTC