Re: [css3-text] vertical-align and shaping

On 09/10/2014 10:37 AM, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
> There is a very real need.  Words sometimes have multiple
> superscripts.  In languages where it matters, these should not join.
> For example, say you have multiple footnotes at one point, and you're
> using letters as footnote indicators, like foo^ABC in English. In
> Arabic, each of the letters should be using the "isolated" shape, but
> if superscripts aren't automatically a break, they'll instead form a
> word, with A, B, and C being in initial/medial/final shapes instead;
> it'll look nonsensical.

I agree that there is a need, but I'm dubious about using vertical-align
as the indicator for it. There are all sorts of cases where you don't
want Arabic letters to join, e.g. acronyms like IBM, and I don't think
it's a good idea to multiply cases where it gets triggered by other
properties.

In the specific case of footnote indicators, you would want to make the
indicators bidi-isolated anyway, so that multiple numeric indicators at
the same point in RTL text don't come out left-to-right.

Received on Wednesday, 10 September 2014 08:34:47 UTC