RE: [css3-ruby] [css3-text] Position values and before/after definitions in LR vertical writing mode

Well, if the issue is only about Ruby, I can agree with you. It's too much work compared to what you get. But unfortunately it's not.

If you draw alphabets, they are rotated clockwise by 90 degree. If you underline them, the line is on left. If you superscript them, they move to right. All these indicate that, at the character level, right is the direction for "before", and this conflicts with the block progression.

If underline is on left, naming that side as "before" is logically incorrect, right?

Originally we had only one direction, right. We renamed it to "physical direction" had split it to page progression and block progression because we understand that in RTL and in vertical writing mode, they are actually different.

And now we're looking at a new case where block progression differs from character progression. So the proposal looks to me that we need another level of the definition in the logical directions.

start|end|before|after the block
over|under the character

well, if you have find words, I'm fine with them. But as long as target object is different, we need different naming system. It could be:

before-char|after-char

A little lengthy, and a little misleading from English point of view though.

I hope we won't find more new cases that require yet another level of logical direction though :)


Regards,
Koji Ishii

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Zilles [mailto:szilles@adobe.com] 
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 4:16 AM
To: Ishii Koji; Richard Ishida; 'fantasai'; www-style@w3.org; 'WWW International'
Subject: RE: [css3-ruby] [css3-text] Position values and before/after definitions in LR vertical writing mode

I believe that the issue is not related to the baseline; In vertical text the baseline is often down the center. The problem with Mongolian seems to be that it is asserted that "ruby" would be placed on the righthand side of a line, which, since Mongolian is a TB-LR language would be the "after" edge of the line. This would conflict with "before" being the default position. 

I do not have any examples of Mongolian text with annotations. All of my examples lack such. I would like to see examples to have a better idea of the problem.

If it is necessary to introduce new terms for annotation positions, I would certainly prefer "over/under" to "above/below" because, at least, the "over/under" pair relate to "overlines" and "underlines"

I think that making the default value of the ruby position be "auto" is a much better way to handle the language differences "automatically", however.

Steve Zilles


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ishii Koji [mailto:kojiishi@gluesoft.co.jp]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 11:39 AM
> To: Stephen Zilles; Richard Ishida; 'fantasai'; www-style@w3.org; 'WWW 
> International'
> Subject: RE: [css3-ruby] [css3-text] Position values and before/after 
> definitions in LR vertical writing mode
> 
> The issue is that, in Mongolian, block progression does not match to 
> the baseline.
> 
> In that case, margin-before is left, but "before" value of ruby 
> position should be right because it's based on baseline, not on block progression.
> 
> I agree with fantasai that we should come up with a new pair of words 
> that indicates directions against baseline. And I would vote 
> "over/under" than "above/below", as the consistency with the underline makes sense to me.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Koji Ishii
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-style-request@w3.org [mailto:www-style-request@w3.org] On 
> Behalf Of Stephen Zilles
> Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2010 1:36 AM
> To: Richard Ishida; 'fantasai'; www-style@w3.org; 'WWW International'
> Subject: RE: [css3-ruby] [css3-text] Position values and before/after 
> definitions in LR vertical writing mode
> 
> I agree with Richard, especially since Ruby seems more common on 
> vertical text.
> 
> Steve Zilles
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: www-international-request@w3.org [mailto:www-international- 
> > request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Richard Ishida
> > Sent: Monday, September 27, 2010 6:11 AM
> > To: 'fantasai'; www-style@w3.org; 'WWW International'
> > Subject: RE: [css3-ruby] [css3-text] Position values and 
> > before/after definitions in LR vertical writing mode
> >
> > My first instinct is to question whether there is an issue here. Is 
> > it a problem that ruby text labelled 'before' will appear to the 
> > left of vertical mongolian text?  Before and after refer to the 
> > position relative to the block progression, in my mind. It's not 
> > about top of line coincidence.
> >
> > I think that above and below are confusing, since they suggest 
> > physical locations that are not appropriate for vertical text.
> >
> > (Note that the CSS Ruby module says " vertical-ideographic layout 
> > mode, the ruby appears on the right side of the base" - mongolian 
> > isn't
> ideographic.
> > That could certainly be made clearer with a note.)
> >
> > RI
> >
> > ============
> > Richard Ishida
> > Internationalization Lead
> > W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)
> >
> > http://www.w3.org/International/
> > http://rishida.net/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: www-international-request@w3.org [mailto:www-international- 
> > > request@w3.org] On Behalf Of fantasai
> > > Sent: 26 September 2010 15:15
> > > To: www-style@w3.org; 'WWW International'
> > > Subject: [css3-ruby] [css3-text] Position values and before/after
> > definitions in
> > > LR vertical writing mode
> > >
> > > In top-to-bottom horizontal writing mode (English, most other
> > > scripts)
> > and
> > in
> > > right-to-left vertical writing mode (CJK), the "before" side and 
> > > the
> > effective
> > > top of the line (wrt vertical alignment, glyph rotation, etc) coincide.
> > >
> > > See
> > >
> > http://fantasai.inkedblade.net/style/discuss/vertical-text/diagrams/
> > te
> > xt-
> > flo
> > w-
> > > vectors-tb.png
> > >
> > http://fantasai.inkedblade.net/style/discuss/vertical-text/diagrams/
> > te
> > xt-
> > flo
> > w-
> > > vectors-rl.png
> > >
> > > But in left-to-right vertical writing mode (Mongolian), the "before"
> > > side
> > and
> > > the effective top of the line do not coincide. See the 
> > > illustration
> here:
> > >    http://fantasai.inkedblade.net/style/discuss/vertical-
> > > text/diagrams/mongolian-vectors.jpg
> > >
> > > The "before" side of a line is to the left. The "top" (ascender) 
> > > side of
> > a
> > line
> > > is to the right.
> > >
> > > If ruby-position and text-underline-position use "before" to mean 
> > > "on the right side of the line" in vertical text, then we have a 
> > > problem where "before"
> > > means
> > > different sides of an item depending on what property is involved.
> > >
> > > Either the definitions should be updated to depend on whether the 
> > > block flow is right-to-left or left-to-right, or the keywords 
> > > should be changed to something else to avoid a conflict in 
> > > meaning. I suggest the latter, since I
> > suspect
> > that
> > > the current definitions are the ones that are typographically relevant.
> > >
> > > However, I haven't encountered any really good pairs of keywords.
> > > (Koji
> > and I
> > > are using "above" and "below" for now.)
> > >
> > > Richard, do you have any thoughts on this?
> > >
> > > ~fantasai
> > >
> > >
> > > No virus found in this incoming message.
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> > > 09/25/10
> > > 18:45:00
> >
>

Received on Thursday, 30 September 2010 01:07:12 UTC