Re: [css3-text] Comments on hyphenation

On 16.05.2011, at 14:56 , Robert O'Callahan wrote:
> I'm not too excited about implementing hyphenate-resource. It seems unlikely to me that a significant number of Web developers will bother developing and deploying their own hyphenation dictionaries.

As for webfonts there will be 3rd party suppliers.

On 16.05.2011, at 16:52 , Jonathan Kew wrote in response to Robert O'Callahan:
> Right; especially given the lack of a clear standard for the format of such resources. Even though most hyphenation algorithms in current use (AFAIK) are derivatives of Liang's work in TeX, there are some variations and extensions, and therefore the resources/dictionaries are not necessarily 100% interoperable.

The same is true for fonts: not all formats are supported by all UAs. That's why people actually are creating standards.
I got the hint and I'll try…

On 16.05.2011, at 16:52 , Jonathan Kew wrote:
> FWIW, I'd consider a misplaced hyphen to be a layout (or formatting, or typesetting) error rather than a spelling error, and I'd consider it somewhat less unacceptable than a spelling error - although still something to be avoided, of course.

At least for German a misplaced hyphen is a spelling error. The "Amtliches Regelwerk" (engl. official rules and standards) of German orthography contains $107-$113 regulating "Worttrennung am Zeilenende" (engl. division of words at the end of lines).
Hyphenation is quite important for German because of its relatively long compound words.

> It can probably never be "perfect" in the sense of reliably identifying every possible hyphenation point; however, it should be possible for it to be "good enough", in the sense of identifying a large enough number of legitimate hyphenation points to substantially improve layout, while avoiding incorrect or ambiguous cases.
That's not what I meant. Missing a hyphenation point is no problem. Nor is getting different results in different browsers. We are used to is;-)
I'm speaking of missplaced hyphens, which are a spelling error (as above).
Liangs pattern generating algorithm (TeX) checks the produced patterns against the supplied list of hyphenated words upon each passthrough erasing out wrong hyphenation points. We produced patterns for German that are correctly hyphenating each word in the source of words. Nevertheless, words that are not in that list (e.g. freely composed compound words – that happens often in German – or words of an area of expertise) may or may not be hyphenated correctly (again not speaking of missed hyphens).
So I'm convinced a working check-and-fix-routine has to be given at hand here.

On 16.05.2011, at 18:02 , Jonathan Kew wrote:

> I don't think it's practical to combine author-provided TeX-style hyphenation patterns "on the fly" with the browser's built-in patterns, nor is it realistic to expect authors to know how to specify such patterns and understand their interaction with the standard ones. An "exceptions list" that overrides the built-in hyphenation for specific words only is simple, understandable, and adequate for this need.

I agree. That would be an applicable fixing-routine that I'm asking for.

Received on Monday, 16 May 2011 18:19:42 UTC