telcon writing-mode discussion (2010-10-20)

> writing-mode
> ------------
> 
>    glazou: Lots of messages from hyatt
>    fantasai: I just need to work those comments into the spec as I draft it;
>              nothing to discuss here today.
>    <jdaggett> http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~eb2m-mrt/epub/rec2WG.html
> 
>    jdaggett has concerns about the fact that logical properties are in the draft
>    and that people think it will be approved by the CSSWG
>    jdaggett: We shouldn't be representing these as anything that is stable
>              or approved by the CSSWG
>    <howcome> I share John's concerns on this.
>    jdaggett: People are going off and implementing this with the idea that
>              this is going to work into the later stage
>    fantasai: It's an editor's draft, and clearly marked as such. The logical
>              properties section is even specially marked to be extra-clear
>              that it's not WG-approved.
>    fantasai: So what do you want me to do?
>    <howcome> I suggest removing that part of the spec for now, or add the
>              other credible proposals as well and ask for feedback
>    jdaggett: These have a lot of side effects on all properties, and there
>              is not enough detail in the spec about these interactions
>    fantasai: I AM NOT DONE DRAFTING THIS YET.
>    fantasai: of course there are not enough details!
>    jdaggett: we should not be talking about this spec as something that is
>              ready to go to candidate recommendation
>    <fantasai> who is talking about this spec as something that is ready for CR?
>    <jdaggett> the notes from the EPUB discussion
>    fantasai: EPUB understands this and the notes are wrong
>    <kojiishi> notes from EPUB was updated since then

I think Håkon's suggestion is a good one, the spec should
probably include other proposals other than logical properties.
Logical properties don't make much sense to me, I don't think
they add much to authoring support for vertical text layout. They
make flipping horizontal/vertical layouts simpler at the expense
of completely muddling the box model for authors.  There will
often be elements that don't flip (images, captions, form
controls) and for those I still see the need to come up with some
way to implementing writing-mode-specific rules.  

So I think it would really help to include some proposal to
address that (e.g. the pseudo-class / pseudo-element idea) so
that the discussion at TPAC is more complete.  It would also help
to have a list of properties that require additional keywords
(e.g. text-align, float) in a more complete form than the current
section 7.3 and some idea of what other CSS3 properties are
affected or not (e.g. border-radius).

Maybe the EPUB notes are wrong but I've consistently heard the
statement in EPUB documents and communications that having two
implementations of a feature makes it somehow equivalent to a
standard. That misses the key ingredient which is some level of
consensus with regards to a feature *and* interoperable
implementations.  Without consensus these are merely
interoperable experiments, valuable for sure but not a standard.

IRC discussion [1]

  <hyatt> i guess i'm kind of falling into the camp of "it should be easy to write code that flips if you just change block-flow on a root"
  <fantasai> [physical | logical]? or something
  <fantasai> that's been my camp, but it's hard to fall into it when nobody wants to implement logical properties :)
  <hyatt> wow i didn't even know there was a debate
  <fantasai> but if you're doing it and Antenna House is doing it, then we have the basis for a standard
  
29-Sept telcon [2]

  jdaggett: Vertical text - we're still arguing about the fundamental
            properties.  It needs to be well-defined by the end of the year.
  jdaggett: To meet the epub schedule, at least.
  fantasai: We will have two impls by the end of the year.
  jdaggett: Impls of what?
  fantasai: what Antenna House and what Hyatt wrote for Webkit will
            be compatible.
  jdaggett: What have we agreed upon?
  fantasai: AH and Hyatt have implemented logical margins.
  howcome:  That doens't mean that's what should be defined.
  jdaggett: Every time we discuss this we get to a point, but don't
            put things into a spec.
  szilles:  What we agreed in Oslo was to see what your proposal was
            and then discuss it at TPAC.
  fantasai: Yes.
  
Enhanced Global Language Support(EGLS) in EPUB [3]

  3.1: CSS Writing Modes Module Level 3
  
  Although this specification is not yet published by W3C as a
  working draft, the editor (fantasai) is optimistic about the
  future of this spec since there's an exsisting implementation by
  Antenna House and an ongoing implementation by the Webkit team.
  Two interoperable implementations greatly help this spec towards
  a W3C recommendation, since one of the criteria for a W3C
  recommendation is two interoperable implementations.
  
Regards,

John Daggett

[1] http://krijnhoetmer.nl/irc-logs/css/20100929
[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2010Oct/0009.html
[3] http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~eb2m-mrt/epub/rec2WG.html

Received on Thursday, 21 October 2010 03:19:56 UTC