Re: [widgets] dir and span elements

[Scott Wilson]

On 1 Mar 2010, at 17:58, Phillips, Addison wrote:

Hi Scott,

One reason to make 'dir' available on higher-level elements is that 'dir', like 'xml:lang', has scope. It is often useful to specify a "base" directionality for an entire document or block of elements rather than having to repeat it over-and-over on each affected element. I can agree that it might not make sense on every element and perhaps we should look at which structural elements in P&C make sense as a place to set a base directionality or directionality override.

Thanks Addison - and yes, I think this makes a lot of sense for a "content"-style spec like HTML, however as the Widgets P&C is a configuration document most of which is IRIs, integers and so on rather than text content its less of a clear case. If dir conformance is tested in relation to the Rule For Obtaining Text Content then this already scopes its use to the four elements mentioned as these are the only elements that the rule applies to.

I also agree about making <span> available inside <license>. In fact, it is probably the *most* useful inside the license element.

Addison

Addison Phillips
Globalization Architect -- Lab126

Internationalization is not a feature.
It is an architecture.

-----Original Message-----
From: public-i18n-core-requ...@w3.org [mailto:public-i18n-core-
requ...@w3.org] On Behalf Of Scott Wilson
Sent: Monday, March 01, 2010 9:44 AM
To: marc...@opera.com
Cc: public-webapps; public-i18n-c...@w3.org
Subject: Re: [widgets] dir and span elements

Hi Marcos,

On 26 Feb 2010, at 17:44, Marcos Caceres wrote:

Hi i18n WG,
I've added the dir attribute and span elements to the Widgets P&C
Specification, as well as a bunch of examples (which are wrong,

so I

would really appreciate some help with these!).

The dir attribute is specified here:
http://dev.w3.org/2006/waf/widgets/#global-attributes

The span element is specified here:
http://dev.w3.org/2006/waf/widgets/#the-span-element

The processing step that defers to the yet to be written [WIDGET-

BIDI]

specification is defined here:
http://dev.w3.org/2006/waf/widgets/#rule-for-getting-text-content

The specification makes it mandatory that a user agent implement

the

WIDGET-BIDI spec:

"A user agent is an implementation of this specification that

also

supports [XML], [XMLNS], [UTF-8], [DOM3CORE], [SNIFF], [WIDGETS-

BIDI],

and [ZIP]..."

We would appreciate your review and any assistance you can

provide.

In particular, we would appreciate your guidance into what would

go

into the Widgets Bidi specification (i.e., how processing is done

for

dir and span). At the moment, we only have the following text for

such

a specification (based on HTML5's bdo element):

[[
If an element has the dir attribute set to the exact value ltr,

then

for the purposes of the bidi algorithm, the user agent must act

as if

there was a U+202D LEFT-TO-RIGHT OVERRIDE character at the start

of

the element, and a U+202C POP DIRECTIONAL FORMATTING at the end

of the

element.

If the element has the dir attribute set to the exact value rtl,

then

for the purposes of the bidi algorithm, the user agent must act

as if

there was a U+202E RIGHT-TO-LEFT OVERRIDE character at the start

of

the element, and a U+202C POP DIRECTIONAL FORMATTING at the end

of the

element.

The requirements on handling the span element for the bidi

algorithm

may be implemented indirectly through the style layer.
]]

I can live with this, with a few comments:

1. "dir" is now an (optional?) attribute of every element; however,
previously its usage was limited to elements that contain human-
readable text content: <author>, <license>, <description>, and
<name>.
Is there a reason for making it global in this manner? E.g. would
it
not make more sense to specify "dir" attributes on these four
specific
P&C elements? I don't see anyone putting "dir" on (e.g.) the height
attribute, nor would we want to include a test for it for
compliance
with optional spec features.

2. "span" should be allowed as a child element of the <license>
element as well as for <name>, <description> and <author>.

Thanks again for all your time and help!

Kind regards,
Marcos
--
Marcos Caceres
http://datadriven.com.au

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