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REQUEST: In the Named character references table, ålease add a column with the official character names, as defined by Unicode. JUSTIFICATION: * HTML5 quite consistently makes use of the official Unicode name for the characters that occurs in algorithims and elswhere. It would be logical to do the same in this table. * Listing the character names would have practical benefit - it would remove the need for looking in UNICODE itself or need for some other means to check the name. * Some characters for which there are named character references, are invisible or otherwise hard to distinguish. Other characters, again, are not rendered by the web browser because the font used by the Web browser does not contain all referenced characters. (Firefox 5 [at least my copy] behaves that way, for isntance.)
The table's already pretty cramped: http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/named-character-references.html#named-character-references So I dunno if this is worth the benefit. The code points are there, and that's all that's strictly necessary.
(In reply to comment #1) Regarding cramped: Firstly, if you narrow the browser window, then you get a much tidier view. (On a wide screen, the table splits into paralell columns, which makes it look cramped.) Secondly: the table lists both 'raquo' and 'raquo;' and both 'shy' and 'shy;'. It sems that all HTML4 entities are listed twice (since the closing ';' was optional in HTML4). [The table should have explained why ...] > So I dunno if this is worth the benefit. The code points are there, and that's > all that's strictly necessary. I believe it would add more than it cluttered. # Roy (Fielding) made the point once that when he searched the spec for "anhor" or "anchor element", he found nothing. To rectify this, the Editor did indeed add the word "anchor" - at least once. This simple change added a kind of conceptual link back to previous specifications of HTML. # Similarily, by adding the UNICODE names of these characters, the spec would get lots for free, as the named characters keep many charaters which either are - of have historically been considered - important to HTML. # For instance, currently, in contrast to HTML4, HTML5 does not (yet) discuss how to hyphenate. But by simply listing the Unicode names, then a search for 'hyphen' would bring up at least those hyphen characters that are mentioned in HTML4. Likewise it would also give us the names for AMPERSAND, LESS-THAN sign etc - all in one place rather than scattered around the specification. # Finally, the caption of the table states that the table "is referenced by the previous sections". Thus, it would make sense to complete it with the names, so that it became a more complete reference. E.g. if I want to know the anme of '<' and '>', then it would be more practival to look up the table rather than starting to extract the name from the HTML syntax description or some such thing.
mass-move component to LC1
EDITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are satisfied with this response, please change the state of this bug to CLOSED. If you have additional information and would like the editor to reconsider, please reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the issue to the full HTML Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to this bug, and suggest title and text for the tracker issue; or you may create a tracker issue yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this document: http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html Status: Rejected Change Description: no spec change Rationale: For the W3C spec: The WG has decided to remove the Unicode names everywhere, so that would (once I implement that change) be inconsistent. For the WHATWG spec: Dude the table is way too big already. Just look up the code if you need the name. It's much more likely that you'd already have the name and code and would be looking for the char ref name for it.