[css3-text] full-size-kana and @text-transform

The current CSS3 Text spec has an issue related to the additional
values defined for text-transform:

  Issue: CSS may introduce the ability to create custom mapping
  tables for less common text transforms, such as by an
  ‘@text-transform’ rule similar to ‘@counter-style’ from
  [CSS3LIST]. This mechanism may be used to replace
  ‘full-size-kana’. This would require authors needing this
  functionality to copy out the conversion tables, however.

I don't think this is an accurate description of the issue.  The issue
is whether this is the right approach to define character transforms
which serve a very small use case.  Much like many of the proposed
additions to number formatting in the original CSS3 Lists spec, I
don't think this is the right approach, I think it's a better use of
implementation resources to define a simple, extensible mechanism for
defining these sorts of transforms and let authors define it
themselves.  That way user agents can implement and test a small
feature and avoid the need to carry around tables that are used in a
very small set of pages.  Defining a long list of transforms that
serve small use cases tends to naturally grow over time ("we should
just add this one tiny addition") until it's a large hulking monster
(see ICU [2]).

We've discussed this multiple times and I don't see there being a clear
resolution to this, we seem to have two camps with no clear middle
ground.  I propose that we either tackle a simple definition of an
@text-transform rule or push both the 'full-size-kana' value and the
@text-transform rule to CSS4 Text.  Either way, I think we should
resolve this issue at the next F2F.

Regards,

John Daggett

[1] http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-text/#text-transform
[2] http://site.icu-project.org/

Received on Tuesday, 24 April 2012 08:12:35 UTC