RE: Direction

XSL-FO deals with this. (See
http://www.w3.org/TR/xsl/slice7.html#writing-mode) It also uses before,
after, start, and end to provide some language independence for the rest of
the properties. 
CSS3 is trying to find a way to deal with possibly vertical text.
(http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-i18n-format/) However, it's unpolished, and the
proposed properties are very complex. One problem of splitting CSS into
modules seems to be that the module writers don't feel any need to keep the
number of properties down.

Jeffrey Yasskin, MCSD

-----Original Message-----
From: Dave J Woolley [mailto:david.woolley@bts.co.uk]
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2001 1:41 PM
To: 'www-style@w3.org'
Subject: RE: Direction


> From:	Michael Hamm [SMTP:MHamm@gc.cuny.edu]
> 
> The Direction property (CSS2) allows only for 'rtl' and 'ltr' values.  I
	[DJW:]  
	The direction should normally be left to the Unicode
	algorithm, so use of these should be exceptional.

> believe Chinese is written from top down (although I may well be mistaken;
	[DJW:]  
	Traditinally it is written from top to bottom, I think 
	within right to left, although modern usage can allow
	left to right within top to bottom.

	However, the whole CSS block rendering model is based on 
	horizontal lines, so I don't think that you could get away
	with this change without a complete rework.

> in any event, I'm fairly certain *some* language(s) are written from top
> down).  It would therefore be prudent to add a 'ttb' (top-to-bottom)
> value,
	[DJW:]  
	Some ancient languages are written left to right and right
	to left on alternate lines (boustrophon).  I think the 
	characters are mirrored on the alternate lines.

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Received on Thursday, 22 February 2001 19:59:42 UTC