Re: [css3-counter-styles] Handling ethiopic-numerals and extended CJK numbers

On 24 February 2013 04:36, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 4:08 AM, Reece Dunn <msclrhd@googlemail.com>
> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Section 6.1.2 describes an algorithm to handle an extended set of
> Chinese,
> > Japanese and Korean numbers. The way it is presented is similar to the
> way
> > the other systems are handled, therefore it makes sense for an
> implementor
> > to have a counter style with |system: cjk| and the characters set
> > appropriately.
> >
> > Likewise, the ethiopic-numerals style could similarly be handled via a
> > |system: ethiopic| counter style with the appropriate characters set.
> >
> > These and any extended symbol sets would be vendor prefixed as Counter
> > Styles 3 currently stands, but could possibly form part of a Counter
> Styles
> > 4 specification to handle these properly.
> >
> > Looking at the way numbers are spoken (e.g. "one hundred and sixteen" for
> > 116 in British English), the way these are constructed is similar to the
> way
> > ethiopic-numerals are formed [1]. The only difference is that Western
> > numbers are split in groups of 3, whereas Ethiopic numbers are split into
> > groups of 2. Also, Korean splits numbers into groups of 4.
> >
> > Therefore, instead of having a specific ethiopic system, they could be
> > expressed using something like |system: natural; group-length: 2;|.
> >
> > This will also help with the CJK extended sets as well, as looking at
> > section 6.1.2, the tables use production rules for handling group-length
> 4
> > numbers.
> >
> > I am interested in spoken forms for numbers as part of my work on a
> > Text-to-Speech program and am wondering if I can express spoken cardinal
> and
> > ordinal forms as CSS counter styles.
>
> As far as I can tell, you can't usefully unify the CJK styles, because
> they all have slight quirks from each other.
>

It may still be possible to express at least a few of these in a new system
that could also support ethiopic-numeric.


> I'm potentially interested in explaining ethiopic-numeric in a real
> system, if there are other useful things that can be expressed in the
> system as well.  However, doing so is probably something for the next
> level of this module.


Agreed.

I'll report back my findings after Counter Styles 3 has entered CR and I
have a full Counter Styles 3 implementation.

Should I mark those as "[css4-counter-styles] ..." as they will be intended
for Level 4?

Thanks,
 - Reece