Summary of I18N discussion in HTML WG today

Hi all!

We had a set of I18N discussions this morning in the HTML WG. Here is a 
very quick and rough summary; please don't hesitate to correct inaccuracies.

### New dir values
Richard exposed the use cases for new dir values, or more precisely for 
a way of specifying isolates more powerful than <bdi> one possible 
implementation of which could rely on the dir attribute.

People in the room generally agreed with the use case, but the general 
feeling was that piggy-backing this off the dir attribute was not the 
approach most conducive to deploying content easily since it didn't 
allow for easy fallback for earlier browsers.

The general idea is therefore that this could be a new attribute either 
complementing or overriding dir when available. This will be pursued as 
an extension spec that Richard will draft with help from myself (and of 
course anyone else who wants to help).


### Forward-looking ruby model
Fantasai exposed a set of issues with the current ruby markup that make 
it awkward to extend in future for features that we have good reasons to 
believe will become increasingly common as HTML is used for books, 
scientific publishing, and pretty much everything in the world in 
general. These involve jukugo ruby, fallback, double-sided ruby.

The plan involves flagging the current ruby markup as at-risk so we can 
replace it later if needed (for those of you who care about process), 
proposing a delta as an extension spec, and merging it in if it's 
successful (essentially applying the typical branching model here). 
Fantasai and I will be hashing out a proposal.

### https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=16965
i18n-ISSUE-97: Allowing a page to request a given locale (4.10.7.2 
normativity)
It is problematic when developing a web app to rely on the user's locale 
rather than use that which is sensible for a given component in the 
document.

People in the group agreed to make this normative in 5.1 and chase up 
implications for lang resolution.

### https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=16959
i18n-ISSUE-88: local/floating date terminology
The terminology in the specification is confusing here. The problem is 
that it has been baked into the syntax as a keyword value (<input 
type=datetime-local>).

Norbert and I will scare up options, if there are any.

### https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=15278
Adding Islamic calendar support in HTML5
This was covered at high speed, but there's a suggestion for a calendar 
attribute that could contain BCP47 keywords, with a caveat from Cameron 
that BCP47 does not have way of indicating the Islamic calendar. He'll 
figure that out with Richard.


♥!

-- 
Robin Berjon - http://berjon.com/ - @robinberjon

Received on Friday, 2 November 2012 10:45:45 UTC