Supporting CSS for typographic information

CSS WG (fantasai) asked whether the i18n WG could document information 
about justification and other typographic info related to non-Latin 
scripts so that CSS specs can point to it for the benefit of 
implementers, rather than try to boil the typographic ocean in the CSS spec.

I chatted with her, and agreed that the CSS spec could point to 
https://www.w3.org/International/wiki/Typography, from which we point to 
information we know about, including:

1. requirements generated by W3C groups
2. spec references
3. tests
4. external pages

(That page is already providing support for work on digital 
publications. Note, btw, that i shortened the URL for the page.)

Furthermore, I believe it would be advantageous to convert information 
in external references to W3C documents for reasons including the following:

1. we could ensure that the information is available on a long-term basis
2. we can put the information out for review and adapt as needed

We are already doing this for some scripts, with our layout requirements 
task forces, ie. Chinese, Japanese, Indic, Korean, and hopefully soon 
Mongolian and Tibetan.

I recommend that any information we develop in-house be grouped into 
documents by script (eg. Tibetan, Korean, Ethiopic, etc) rather than by 
feature (eg. justification, emphasis, page layout, etc.). Partly this is 
useful because it fits with our current approach vis a vis layout 
requirements, and partly because features such as justification are 
often interconnected with other features, such as line-breaking, 
hyphenation, line-start indentation, etc, etc. and so it makes sense to 
describe all the features together.

Bringing the information into W3C documents involves some extra work for 
the WG. Ideally the documentation would be created by experts working in 
task forces. We already have people working on Chinese, Korean, Indic, 
etc, and we should encourage participation from others.  For example, we 
heard this week from someone who is interested in writing up information 
about Ethiopic. I also have some contacts who expressed interest in 
working on Arabic-script information.

One major benefit of doing this work is that it directly affects the 
usability of the Web in cultures around the world, and supports in a 
practical way our 'Web for All' philosophy.  Another is that it involves 
in the W3C people from countries and cultures around the world that have 
typically not been well engaged by us in the past, as well as 
effectively promoting awareness and relevance of the W3C around the world.

Comments?

ri



PS: if anyone reading this knows of authoritative and useful information 
about typographic requirements for a given script, please send me a 
link, so that i can consider adding to the wiki page above.

Received on Thursday, 14 May 2015 15:39:22 UTC