Re: Something like xml:dir (was: Re: [css3-writing-modes] direction vs. writing mode in markup vs. style)

"Martin J. Dürst" scripsit:

> Yes, I'd definitely wait for that discussion to settle down (or  
> participate if you are interested). In addition, please carefully  
> analyze what an XML vocabulary that is very data-oriented (as opposed to  
> document-oriented) might need. The original (ca. 1995) design for bidi  
> in HTML was aimed only at static documents; the current additional  
> efforts try to cover more dynamic documents and therefore cover data in  
> one way or another, and that may or may not be enough.

I don't understand that.  What happens in CSS is outside our remit:
what happens in XSLT or XQuery or another translation language would
presumably generate appropriate attributes in the right places.  As
fantasai says, the default directionality of text is a content property;
it is a "higher-level protocol" in the sense of the Unicode Standard,
overriding the prescribed means of guessing the default directionality
(namely looking at the first character of the text).

> I hope it will not be handled in a similar way. The problem with  
> xml:lang in (X)HTML was that people assumed because there was an  
> xml:lang, that needed to be used, and they also worried about  
> interpretation of the same document as HTML, so lang was also required.  

Inevitably so if you want your document processable as both generic
XML and HTML.

But this would be more like xml:id; document formats can use it or not,
as they choose.

> The right way is to use something like xml:dir for new XML vocabularies,  
> and let HTML and XHTML stay with the current unprefixed attributes. All  
> other XML vocabularies that already have some bidi mechanisms should  
> also stay with the attributes (or elements) they already have.

Quite so.  XML Core would have no means of changing them.

-- 
John Cowan      cowan@ccil.org
        "Not to know The Smiths is not to know K.X.U."  --K.X.U.

Received on Wednesday, 27 October 2010 17:37:09 UTC