Re: [css3-text] Adjacent and nested underlines (was Allow control of text-decoration width

> Word seems to make the underline on two adjoining characters
> always the same height and thickness, but not color (it
> follows the color of the letter it's under). I agree that the
> way Word works is good. In Word, it looks like each letter is
> either underlined or not, as a binary per-letter property. But
> to determine underline height and thickness, it looks at an
> entire run of underlined text at a time, and draws the same
> height and thickness for the whole run.

I don’t agree with using Word as the model that we must follow. In
terms of control of how the underline should behave it is falling very
short of expectations of how underlines SHOULD behave in Chinese.

However, I do agree that we should, in most (but not all) cases,
consider the entire run of text to determine correct underline
positioning. However, this should not be enforced all the time, as
there can be cases we don’t want this. This was discussed in the
previous thread.

2011/4/7 Koji Ishii <kojiishi@gluesoft.co.jp>:
> This is a very interesting point we edited the spec recently. There was a request from Chinese to split adjacent underlines visually[1]. The request was to add a new value, but instead, we chose to put following text in the spec[2]:
>
>> The UA should place the start and end of the line inwards
>> from the content edge of the decorating element so that,
>> e.g. two underlined elements side-by-side do not appear
>> to have a single underline. (This is important in Chinese,
>> where underlining is a form of punctuation.)
>
> Your 2nd example, adjacent underlines, contradicts with this request.
>
> The 3rd example, nested underlines, is even more interesting. I tried to read expected behavior from the spec without much luck. I guess the underlines should split, just like adjacent underlines, but I'm not sure.

This would also be what I expect (as someone who considers U a
semantic element instead of a visual element).

Of course, for someone who considers U visual instead of semantic,
they “may” merge. But still not necessarily “should”. I can see how a
graphic designer will want a finer grain control in how the underlines
act (in terms of underlining positioning, thickness, and other
things).

> CSS3 Text is still a working draft and the above paragraph was added only a few months ago, so I suspect no browsers have implemented this yet. But if they do, it breaks your use case.
>
> Couldn't HTML editors merge two adjacent <u> elements when needed?

<rant>
Yes, I agree that this kind of behaviour—generation of tight HTML
code—would solve a lot of problems.
</rant>


-- 
cheers,
-ambrose

my thoughts on HTML5: http://goo.gl/vhv5F + http://goo.gl/leonq
(thanks and no thanks)

Received on Thursday, 7 April 2011 19:34:47 UTC