W3C

Arabic Layout telecon

20 Oct 2015

See also: IRC log

Attendees

Present
Shervin, mostafa, Behnam, r12a, Najib, Azzeddine_on_IRC
Regrets
Waseem
Chair
Behnam
Scribe
Shervin, Behnam

Contents


Status review of action items from previous meeting

<r12a> ACTION: Behnam to file github issues for special cases, like Quran [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action02]

<r12a> ACTION: Behnam to follow-up with Martin about a Lightning Talk at the IUC [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action03]

<r12a> ACTION: Behnam to prepare slides for the talk and share with the TF [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action04]

Behnam: Is working on the slides for the IUC presentation.
... Next agenda item is about typesetting software.

<r12a> ACTION: Everybody to gather information about Arabic-specific Typesetting software [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action05]

<r12a> ACTION: Richard to figure out how to maintain action items [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action06]

<r12a> closed

<r12a> ACTION: Behnam to file an issue re Math and whether to exclude that in the first version [ONGOING] [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action07]

Behnam: is still working on action item related to math.

<r12a> ACTION: Behnam to research the existing experts for other languages like Urdu [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action08]

Behnam: Will keep the action item open regarding other languages experts (e.g. Urdu).

<r12a> ACTION: r12a to check regarding processing of the minutes and get back to the group [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action09]

r12a: Will publish the minute.

<r12a> ACTION: Shervin to put together a preliminary list of existing literature [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action10]

Shervin: On the email sent to the ML, there's a Dropbox link to see the files

<Shervin> https://www.dropbox.com/s/u7kn9sy9tuve0s9/ALReq_Refs_List.md?dl=0

Shervin: Not all the items will be referenced first-hand
... and some are more valuable than others

<Shervin> https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jt161nncj3c6xez/AABCFWUdKCGZTW9gXS9tYSpVa?dl=0

Shervin: We need someone with knowledge of Arabic to help understanding some of these documents
... some taken from the website of standard organization of Saudi Arabia

<r12a> http://w3c.github.io/typography/#justification

1+

<r12a> http://www.tug.org/tugboat/tb27-2/tb87benatia.pdf

r12a: Topics provided in the email.

<r12a> http://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jep/3336451.0013.105/--justify-just-or-just-justify?rgn=main;view=fulltext

<r12a> http://www.cle.org.pk/Publication/papers/2004/rule-based-expert-system.pdf

<Behnam> Shervin: Anyone with a Dropbox account can ask for write permission to add documents directly, or, if not, send Shervin change requests over email

<r12a> http://rishida.net/blog/?p=1059

Shervin: Going to put in the topics that Richard sent over

r12a: Some of them might not want to go into the list.

<r12a> the last url just give ideas to consider for alreq, rather than being a reference doc

Recruiting Status

Mostafa: No update from contacts.

Shervin: Welcoming, Azzeddine.
... Question for Mostafa regarding Salar's participation.

Behnam: Is Salar on the mailing list?

r12a: He's on the list.
... Sent some information to the University in Oman. Copied people who are going to go there for a meeting re Unicode.
... Craig Cummings showed interest and he will follow the conversation on mailing list.

Najib: Still looking for right people who are aware of Arabic publishing including Quran.
... People contacted don't know what's expected from them.
... May want to contact them regularly as we advance in the document.

<azzeddine> azzeddine

<azzeddine> hello all, my apologies

<Behnam> Shervin: As a follow up to Najib's comment: we can point people to the keywords list and document structure, as well as other Layout Requirement documents published

Shervin: Re: Recruiting. Would be good to share JLReq and list of keywords with people who might be interested.

Status report on glossary work

Shervin: Have the spreadsheet. Shared with people who showed interest. Mostafa added some terms. How people feel about starting the translation?

mostafa: Suggests to look in the existing literature. Find the words used.
... If there's one, we're good. If there is more we can decide about it later.
... this would reduce the amount of work.

+1

Najib: Didn't start conributing yet. Have a set of terms to add. Some already added.
... Not sure how to fill the glossary with translation.

Najib: We can have many terms which means the same concept.
... This is the question for the group.

<Behnam> Shervin: As mostafa mentioned, there can exist duplicate terms

<Behnam> ... the requirement document will be in English, and we can have all the different terms used in other languages

Mostafa: Another aspect of what Najib mentioned; different terms in English for same concept.

<Behnam> ... and the second thing is that we don't need limit the glossary to one translation per term

Mostafa: We can use one of them. Others can just appear or be linked to original.

<Behnam> +1

<Behnam> Shervin: Question for mostafa and Najib: do you have access to the google-docs document?

<Behnam> ... (both confirm) Feel free to work on the document there and I will chip in myself

<Behnam> This is the document: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nSxYKQm_mKroCmxU4fyJ-g70Eo1_mF89yHZg8YNOuzc/edit#gid=0

<Behnam> Shervin: Added columns for Persian and Arabic translations

<Behnam> Shervin: Let's start with priorities 1 and 2, for now

Mostafa: Sources should be document. We need to have them documented in a spreadsheet.

Behnam: How is different than current state of the doc?

Mostafa: There is no bibliography. e.g. "Soltani" is not specified.

<Behnam> Shervin: I'm going to add a unique identifier to all the items in our references list

<mostafa> +1

<Behnam> ... for now, if you see something in the glossary that's not clear, you can add a new tab to the spreadsheet and keep them there temporarily

Behnam: Other discussion about glossary work.

Mostafa: Actions needed to be defined?

<Behnam> ACTION: Shervin to add unique ids to the references list [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action11]

<Behnam> ACTION: Shervin to process links proposed by Richard [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action12]

<Behnam> ACTION: Mostafa and Najib to populate translations in the Glossary [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action13]

<Behnam> Shervin: We already covered the topic and got the actions, which I'll follow up on

<r12a> ACTION: Shervin to add list of references to spreadsheet and assign unique identifiers [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action14]

Planning for start of drafting

<Behnam> Shervin: Najib, in an email, mentioned the use/misuse of typefaces/fonts

<Behnam> ... this is a good example of what we can cover

<Behnam> ... in section "Font and Typography Considerations"

<Behnam> ... and there are other writing styles to also consider, like Nasta'liq

Najib: Will propose some text for this section. Will email the content.

<r12a> for reference, here's a similar section in clreq http://w3c.github.io/clreq/#commonly_used_chinese_typefaces

r12a: One thought is to avoid the style-guide pitfall. There is a similar section in CLReq. We should be careful not to write recommendations.

Shervin: Readability issue of font styles something to put in the document?

r12a: Can be. Styling and justifications, etc. of fonts are different. Styling of Nastaliq is very different.

Behnam: Wanted to note that although we don't want to recommend, for the sake of describing the problem, we need to get to the description and classes of styles.

r12a: The behaviour varies from font style to font style. We rather document rather than providing recommendations.

<r12a> another example: fonts in the Ruqah style never use elongation at all (see http://rishida.net/blog/?p=1059)

<r12a> +1 to Shervin's comment

<Najib> +1 too

Shervin: Document the usages without favoring one over the other.

Najib: The intention was to describe styles. And what not to do with styles. Some remarks to make people aware of how to use them.
... Not to recommend or put rules.

r12a: Sounds good to me.

Behnam: Any other section of the document we want to talk about?

r12a: I've been hearing this for a long time; for Persian if Nastaliq is not used then Tahoma is a good font.

Behnam: Lacking other fonts, Tahoma is a font to use. Specifically for publications, it's prefered to use other fonts.

<Najib> +1 to Behnam about Tahoma

Mostafa: Agrees with Behnam. Tahoma rarely appears in print. More options are available these days and other options are used.
... aesthetically it doesn't have much appeal to Iranians.

<Behnam> Shervin: Mostafa likes to start working on the Characters section

<Behnam> ... and Najib is willing to start the Styles and Fonts section

Mostafa: Glossary is not going to be done in a week and it's an ongoing task.

<scribe> ACTION: Mostafa to start the section on Characters and provide some draft for everyone's feedback and contribution. [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action15]

<scribe> ACTION: Najib to produce some text for the section "Fonts and Typographical Considerations" based on discussions on the mailing list and IRC. [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action16]

<r12a> i'm finding some interesting pages that might inspire Najib: http://islamicart.com/main/calligraphy/styles/, http://www.shutterstock.com/blog/2013/07/a-brief-guide-to-arabic-scripts-and-calligraphy/

<Najib> Thank Richard

<Behnam> azzeddine, since we don't have you on the phone, is there anything you like to share with us here?

<Najib> Gonna look at it.

<azzeddine> no, i follow you

Behnam: I can also work with drafting of Characters sections.

<Najib> @ Richard. Links looks inspiring

Mostafa: Will communicate regarding drafting.

r12a: One thing that comes to mind; there was discussions on CSS regarding default styles and fallback styles.
... which fonts one expects to see for serif, sans-serif, etc.
... These questions might be relevant to Arabic as well./
... Without saying "In CSS you should do this..."

Behnam: Agrees. Topic of classifying writing styles.
... Default writing styles for different languages might be different.

Shervin: Not enough study and literature about the topic of mapping the styles to serif, sans-, etc.

Najib: We can separate the problem of Arabic style in general and Arabic mixed with others.
... That's why I'm not mentioning CSS firsthand.\

Mostafa: Shervin mentioned Naskh as bookish type. There's not much certainty about these.
... As we don't want to come across as a style guide. We don't have to make statement that there's not enough info.

r12a: We can describe general tendency as background information.

Mostafa: The amount of content that we go into details not clear to us just yet.

Behnam: Agrees. There is the lack of enough study on these topics. If we look deeper we might be able to do something that benefits from the existing studies...
... For the case of CSS (serif, sans-, monospace), because they were there in the beginning of desktop pub
... The reason for having these classes was different use-cases in the western world.
... They had connotations in design.
... That's why something like computer source code is present in monospace.
... The root cause of having these definition is the use cases.
... For Arabic we have Nastaliq for fancy documents (like a graduation certificate)

<azzeddine> I can't give any opinion Now about these topics. However, when we propose a text, I'll study it with a confirmed arabic calligraph

Behnam: Handwriting style used for some friendly note
... These use cases are not documented.
... I don't see a big problem in documenting on what we know and agree on.

<mostafa> +1

<Behnam> Shervin: I see your point, but I think there's not enough consensus about the style usage

<Behnam> ... specially when it gets to different languages/regions

<Behnam> ... we can show people some usages of styles

<Behnam> ... but we cannot recommend any style explicitly

<Behnam> ... because, for example, a handwriting font may not look good enough

<Behnam> +1

Behnam: We can agree on what's formal or official.

Behnam: We can agree with a good probability that an official certificate would be in Nastaliq or a variation.
... It's a thin line between recommending and this is the common practice.
... It's a slightly different case from Latin script when it comes to use-cases.
... The practices are different between languages.
... We can agree that we want to document the styles.
... After that the use-cases can be talked about based on region and language.
... We can find resources regarding that.

<Zakim> Najib, you wanted to comment on AOB

<r12a> we can say "Nastaliq tends to be used for ..."

Najib: Question on Unicode conference remote participation?

Behnam: I guess not. If people are interested in some talks, then we can setup some video conferencing.
... We can set up a video conf for the lightening talk.

<Behnam> https://github.com/w3c/alreq

<r12a> ACTION: Richard to ensure that people are notified about github issues [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action17]

Najib: Question about getting notification when someone files a Github issue.

Behnam: You need to watch the repository.
... Any other topics before we close the call?

<Behnam> Thanks everyone!

<mostafa> Thank you.

<mostafa> Bye.

Summary of Action Items


[NEW] ACTION: Behnam to file github issues for special cases, like Quran [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action02]
[NEW] ACTION: Behnam to follow-up with Martin about a Lightning Talk at the IUC [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action03]
[NEW] ACTION: Behnam to prepare slides for the talk and share with the TF [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action04]
[NEW] ACTION: Behnam to research the existing experts for other languages like Urdu [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action08]
[NEW] ACTION: Everybody to gather information about Arabic-specific Typesetting software [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action05]
[NEW] ACTION: Mostafa and Najib to populate translations in the Glossary [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action13]
[NEW] ACTION: Mostafa to start the section on Characters and provide some draft for everyone's feedback and contribution. [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action15]
[NEW] ACTION: Najib to produce some text for the section "Fonts and Typographical Considerations" based on discussions on the mailing list and IRC. [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action16]
[NEW] ACTION: r12a to check regarding processing of the minutes and get back to the group [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action09]
[NEW] ACTION: Richard to ensure that people are notified about github issues [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action17]
[NEW] ACTION: Shervin to add list of references to spreadsheet and assign unique identifiers [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action14]
[NEW] ACTION: Shervin to add unique ids to the references list [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action11]
[NEW] ACTION: Shervin to process links proposed by Richard [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action12]
[NEW] ACTION: Shervin to put together a preliminary list of existing literature [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action10]
 
[PENDING] ACTION: Behnam to file an issue re Math and whether to exclude that in the first version [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2015/10/20-alreq-minutes.html#action07]
 
[End of minutes]

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$Date: 2015/10/22 09:25:37 $