Category: New resource

On 15th September, the Internationalization Core Working Group published Requirements for String Identity Matching and String Indexing as a Working Group Note.

This document is being published as a Working Group note in order to capture and preserve historical information. It contains requirements elaborated in 1998 for aspects of the character model for W3C specifications. It was developed and extensively reviewed by the Internationalization Working Group, but never progressed beyond Working Draft status. For this publication, the wording of the 1998 version remains unchanged (except for correction of a small number of typographic errors), but the links to references have been updated prior to this publication.

The document describes requirements for some important aspects of the character model for W3C specifications. The two aspects discussed are string identity matching and string indexing.

Editor: Martin Dürst. [search keys: tr-charreq]

The Internationalization Core Working Group has published Authoring HTML: Handling Right-to-left Scripts as a Working Group Note.

This document describes techniques for the use of HTML markup and CSS style sheets when creating content in languages that use right-to-left scripts, such as Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Thaana, Urdu, etc. It builds on (but also goes beyond) markup needed to supplement the Unicode bidirectional algorithm, and also touches on how to prepare content that will later be localized into right-to-left scripts.

Editor: Richard Ishida. [search keys: tr-i18n-html-tech-bidi]

The IETF has published RFC 5646, an update of Tags for Identifying Languages. This specification obsoletes former RFCs 4646, 3066 and 1766.

RFC 5646 makes it possible to use over 7,000 three-letter ISO 639-3 language codes, in addition to the 2 letter codes that have been in use for some time. It also introduces 220 'extended language' subtags, mainly for backwards compatibility.

It continues to be best to refer to this specification as BCP47. This is a non-changing name and web address that points to the latest relevant RFCs.

The Internationalization Working Group at the W3C is working on an article to help users choose language tags, given the various types of subtag that are now available, and the sheer number of subtags.

You can look up language and other subtags in the IANA Language Subtag Registry.

FAQ-based article: If I'm unable to use markup to correctly order bidirectional text, what can I do?

By Richard Ishida, W3C. [search key: qa-bidi-unicode-controls]

This document describes requirements for Japanese layout realized with technologies like CSS, SVG and XSL-FO. For non-Japanese speakers it provides access for the first time to a wealth of detailed and authoritative information about Japanese typesetting. The document is mainly based on a standard for Japanese layout, JIS X 4051 and its authors include key contributors to that standard. However, it also addresses areas which are not covered by JIS X 4051.

The document was created by the Japanese Layout Task Force (with participation from four W3C Working Groups, CSS, Internationalization Core, SVG and XSL)

A Japanese version is also available.

Right-to-left scripts include Arabic, Hebrew, Thaana and N'ko, and are used by a large number of people around the world. If you are new to dealing with bidirectional text, getting it to display correctly can sometimes appear complex and confusing, but it need not be so. If you have struggled with this or have yet to start, this tutorial should help you adopt the best approach to marking up your content. It also explains enough of how the bidirectional algorithm works for you to understand much better the root causes of most problems, and it addresses some common misconceptions about ways to deal with markup for bidirectional content

After reading this tutorial you should:

• create effective SVG Tiny 1.2 content containing text written in the Arabic or Hebrew (or other right-to-left) scripts
• understand the basics of how the Unicode bidirectional algorithm works, so that you can understand why bidirectional text behaves the way it does, and how to work around problems
• take decisions about the appropriateness of alternatives to markup

These tests explore how and if a user agent supports download of font information over the Web, particularly for complex script support. Fonts are downloaded both as directly as OpenType fonts, and using an EOT wrapper. Both methods tested use the CSS @font-face mechanism.[search key: test-webfonts]

These tests examine whether user agents follow the rules in CSS 2.1 about detecting the encoding of CSS style sheets. This is particularly important if you style sheet uses non-ASCII characters in such things as class names, content, or font names. [search key: test-encoding-detection]

Article: This article provides guidelines for the migration of software and data to Unicode. It covers planning the migration, and design and implementation of Unicode-enabled software. A basic understanding of Unicode and the principles of character encoding is assumed.

By Norbert Lindenberg & Addison Phillips, Yahoo. [search key: article-unicode-migration]

The Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Working Group has published the Working Group Note Best Practices for XML Internationalization. This document provides a set of guidelines for developing XML documents and schemas that are internationalized properly. Following the best practices describes here allow both the developer of XML applications, as well as the author of XML content to create material in different languages.

Editors: Yves Savourel, Jirka Kosek, Richard Ishida. [search key: tr-bp-xml-i18n]