Re: [css3-writing-modes] before/after terminology alternative?

fantasai <fantasai.lists@inkedblade.net> wrote on 2012/10/12 5:37:22
> On 10/10/2012 06:45 PM, "Martin J. Dürst" wrote:
> >
> >> I raised this particular issue years ago, but nobody
> >> came up with a sensible alternative until this year. :/
> >
> > Are you saying that with start, head, end, foot, it's more clear, without memorizing it beforehand, which set belongs to which
> > axis?
> 
> I think linking 'head' to the concept of "header" and 'foot' to the
> concept of "footer" makes it more clear. E.g. <thead> is always on
> the block-before side of the table. Then start/end has to be along
> the other axis.

As I noted before[1], in Japanese layout terminology, 行頭(line head) 
is the start of line,  頭注(headnote) is placed at the top of page 
in vertical text layout, and 脚注(footnote) is placed at the 
bottom of page. All those are orthogonal to the block-before/after 
directions in Japanese vertical text layout.

I think the CSSWG's 2012-05-30 Resolution,
"RESOLVED: Switch before/after logical directions to head/foot" 
was based on wrong assumption. I found the following discussion 
in the minutes[2]:

   Koji: Footnote appears on the left
   fantasai: And a heading appears on the right side of a section
   <ChrisL> so it is consistent between horizontal and vertical

In Japanese layout terminology, "Footnote appears on the left" is wrong.
Although some text layout softwares (like MS Word) call that "footnote" 
in vertical writing mode, that should be called "sidenote" (傍注) in 
Japanese layout terminology. JLREQ (4.2.6 Processing of Sidenotes in 
Vertical Writing Mode) says "Side notes in vertical writing mode are 
similar to footnotes in horizontal writing mode."[3]

I understand that the term head/foot can be both physical and logical; 
usually same as physical top/bottom, e.g., page-header/footer, 
headnote/footnote, and when the context is given, they can be 
inline direction, e.g., "line-head"(行頭), or block direction,
e.g., "thead" (table-header) and "tfoot" (table-footer).

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2012Jun/0014.html
[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2012May/1149.html
[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/jlreq/#processing_of_sidenote_in_vertical_writing_mode

> 
> > If we only think about horizontal, it might be, but in this case, it's crucial that this also works with vertical. And
> > if I think e.g. about some Japanese vertical text (where the first line is at the right), then it's quite easy to guess that
> > head means top, and foot means bottom, and therefore start has to be right and end has to be left. But that guess would be all
> > wrong.
> 
> Fair enough.
> 
> > So rather than using something that lets some people guess things correctly some time, but leads people totally astray in
> > other cases, I'd prefer words that, while they may have the problem of not inducing the right connotations, also don't induce
> > wrong connotations.
> 
> ~fantasai


Shinyu Murakami
Antenna House

Received on Friday, 12 October 2012 02:36:03 UTC