Re: switch with systemLanguage is broken by standards

Hi, Jonathan-

I think I agree with you and Stuart Morgan [1] that a negotiated choice 
with Accept-Language [2] would be better.

I don't know exactly how we can change it for SVG Tiny 1.2, but I 
suggest that at the minimum we can issue an errata (maybe even for SVG 
1.0), if the rest of the SVG WG agrees.  I'll bring it up in an upcoming 
telcon soon.

For 'switch', I will propose text like, "The 'switch' element evaluates 
the requiredFeatures, requiredExtensions, and systemLanguage attributes 
on its direct child elements.  The order of evaluation for 
systemLanguage shall be the order of of preference expressed in HTTP/1.1 
Accept-Language if defined.  The order of evaluation for systemLanguage 
where the language preference is not defined and for requiredFeatures 
and requiredExtensions shall be the document order.  The first most 
appropriate child for which these attributes evaluate to true shall be 
processed and rendered.  All others will be bypassed and therefore not 
rendered. If the child element is a container element such as a 'g', 
then the entire subtree is either processed/rendered or bypassed/not 
rendered."

(Maybe with an example, for clarity).  If the general premise is 
accepted by the WG, I will work up similar language for section 5.8.5 
(The systemLanguage attribute).

I can think of 2 arguments against this:

1) It may take too much processing for SVG Tiny UAs (I doubt this, but 
will ask implementors);

2) It removes control from the author, who may have listed the different 
options in order for a reason.  They may only supply fallback 
"translation" text like, "Please read this document in a browser that 
understands Arabic" or something (bad practice, but possible).  They may 
be very comfortable writing in Japanese, and so go into more detail in 
the first entry, with a more terse translation in English out of necessity.

That said, I still prefer the language negotiation.

Note that the UA is not prevented from creating a workaround for this, 
such as allowing the author to pick one language as the exclusive 
Accept-Language string on the fly.  A kluge, but it wouldn't break the 
spec.  Actually, I've wished before that we could allow the UA to give 
the list of options to the user to let them decide... maybe this could 
be a new feature for 'switch' in an upcoming version.

Does this work for you?

[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=326375#c17
[2] http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html#sec14.4

Regards-
-Doug

Research and Standards Engineer
6th Sense Analytics
www.6thsenseanalytics.com
mobile: 919.824.5482

Jonathan Chetwynd wrote:
> 
> 
> Camino developers have suggested that the current definitions used for 
> 'switch' and 'systemLanguage'
> http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/struct.html#SwitchElement
> http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/struct.html#SystemLanguageAttribute
> 
> mean that it's not possible for the client to express any language 
> preference.
> 
> The result is that the user should have no control over the language 
> displayed, as the first language in the authors switch statement which 
> is accepted by the client will be used.
> 
> It is evident this will only very rarely be the users language of choice.
> 
> a test case is here:
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=233450
> My machine is set to accept the three languages, french, spanish, 
> german, but I will only get french, whatever my preference, unless I 
> edit the accepted language list.
> 
> a longer description of the issue is here:
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=326375
> #3 & #17 in particular
> 
> regards
> 
> Jonathan Chetwynd
> 
> it seems to me they may be equally true of the SVG1.2 definitions:
> http://www.w3.org/TR/SVGMobile12/struct.html#SwitchElement
> http://www.w3.org/TR/SVGMobile12/struct.html#SystemLanguageAttribute
> 
> 
> 
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?>
> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"  
> xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" width="100%" height="100%">
>     <g id='symbol1Text'>
>                 <switch >
>                     <text x="20" y="20" systemLanguage="fr" >ploc</text>
>                     <text x="20" y="20" systemLanguage="es" >la 
> mancha</text>
>                     <text x="20" y="20" systemLanguage="de" >splat</text>
>                     <text x="20" y="20" >splat</text>
>                 </switch>
> 
> 
>     </g>
>   </svg>
> 
> 
> 
>

Received on Thursday, 16 November 2006 18:20:36 UTC