12:05:16 RRSAgent has joined #pmwg 12:05:20 logging to https://www.w3.org/2025/05/22-pmwg-irc 12:05:20 RRSAgent, make logs Public 12:05:21 Meeting: Publishing Maintenance Working Group 12:05:21 ivan has changed the topic to: Meeting Details 2025-05-22: https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-pm-wg/2025May/0033.html 12:05:21 Chair: wendy 12:05:21 Meeting: Publishing Maintenance Working Group Telco 12:05:21 Agenda: https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-pm-wg/2025May/0033.html 12:17:57 tzviya_ has joined #pmwg 12:23:32 ivan has joined #pmwg 12:27:41 ivan2 has joined #pmwg 12:28:04 tzviya1 has joined #pmwg 12:28:12 plh has joined #pmwg 12:53:52 Dale has joined #pmwg 12:56:48 wendyreid has joined #pmwg 12:58:07 present+ 12:58:11 present+ dale 12:58:24 present+ elisabeth_kraler 12:58:31 present+ sueneu 12:58:35 rdeltour has joined #pmwg 12:58:38 present+ george 12:58:45 present+ 12:59:20 mgarrish has joined #pmwg 12:59:20 present+ brady 12:59:26 SueNeu has joined #pmwg 12:59:28 George has joined #pmwg 12:59:32 present+ 12:59:40 shiestyle has joined #pmwg 12:59:42 MasakazuKitahara has joined #pmwg 12:59:42 toshiakikoike has joined #pmwg 12:59:43 regrets+ (at least for the first half) 12:59:48 present+ 12:59:50 present+ 12:59:52 AvneeshSingh has joined #pmwg 12:59:54 present+ rdeltour 12:59:54 present+ 13:00:01 present+ 13:00:02 present+ 13:00:16 gautierchomel has joined #pmwg 13:00:44 s/ (at least for the first half)// 13:01:06 duga has joined #pmwg 13:01:19 present+ wendyreid 13:01:25 Present+ 13:01:30 present+ 13:01:30 present+ 13:01:36 present+ 13:01:55 present+ Laura_driussi 13:01:59 present+ gautierchomel 13:02:06 gpellegrino has joined #pmwg 13:02:10 present+ mgarrish 13:02:16 present+ 13:02:25 CharlesL has joined #pmwg 13:02:26 George has joined #pmwg 13:03:57 present+ CharlesL 13:04:48 zakim, pick a victim 13:04:48 Not knowing who is chairing or who scribed recently, I propose ivan 13:05:21 scribe+ mgarrish 13:05:36 Topic: EPUB HTML Survey - https://github.com/w3c/pm-wg/pull/21/files 13:05:58 present+ hadrien 13:06:12 wendyreid: looking at the proposed text from Gauthier I mostly think we should focus on the question - we probably want to ask more than one question 13:06:14 q+ 13:06:22 ack gpellegrino 13:06:35 gpellegrino: in the google doc there were more questions - did we lose them? 13:06:41 q+ 13:06:56 ack ivan 13:07:19 ivan: you are right but we discussed previously that we should simplify the survey as much as possible 13:08:08 bduga: that was what my comment was - I thought we wanted a tell us what we think and maybe a follow up about why - the current question is maybe too specific and should be made broader 13:09:09 present question in the PR: "**Question 1:** What challenges, if any, would your organization face in adding support for HTML syntax in your workflows? Please describe any technical, operational, or resource-related issues you foresee." 13:09:11 q+ 13:09:21 ack SueNeu 13:09:21 wendyreid: I agree with brady that there should be a follow up question - question one is what are the challenges and question two is do you think these are insurmountable 13:09:53 SueNeu: I think we're leading the witness if we only focus on problems and pain points - we'll get that feedback but we don't need to focus there 13:10:05 q+ 13:10:09 ack George 13:10:12 ...: we should have a question about the general issues in the community 13:10:18 s|https://github.com/w3c/pm-wg/pull/21/files|https://github.com/w3c/pm-wg/pull/21| 13:10:47 George: I get the sense that most of us think it is important to get to html - why not state that we will add support and do you have a major objection to that 13:10:56 present+ laurent 13:11:11 ...: if there is a major objection then we should hear that because it will affect w3c process 13:11:51 wendyreid: that's probably one angle we can take but we want to send this out wider than w3c community so we should be careful not to focus too much on w3c lingo 13:12:04 ... the person responding may not be in a position to object formally 13:12:48 ... we need to consider the source, too - a single self publisher won't carry as much weight in objecting 13:13:22 ... we need to weigh objections and understand why people are objecting 13:14:07 LaurentLM has joined #pmwg 13:14:13 bduga: maybe we need to make it clear that this is a thing that has to happen eventually and we want focus on what happens if it appears tomorrow - not on objecting because this has to happen 13:14:22 +1 to brady 13:14:24 present+ LaurentLM 13:14:40 wendyreid: and is there anything we can do in our implementation that makes this easier for you 13:14:45 q+ 13:14:48 ack ivan 13:15:33 ivan: I think the way we should formulate the question is not on whether we will do this but this is coming and what should we do to facilitate the transition 13:15:51 +1 to ivan 13:15:56 ... we've had a lot of talk of versioning and profiling - we need more info on how to do it 13:16:03 +1 to ivan 13:16:29 wendyreid: the way the question is currently framed fits that model but we should make it clear in the opening comments we're doing this 13:16:45 duga has joined #pmwg 13:16:52 we had that question in the previous version :) 13:16:55 ... we need a question about who is submitting - what is their role, are they a publisher, developer, etc. 13:17:07 q+ 13:17:10 ack SueNeu 13:17:33 q+ 13:17:47 SueNeu: So just to recap the question is about the impact on the work and where do you fit in the publishing ecosystem - do we also want a question on how we can support people? 13:17:49 ack ivan 13:18:42 ivan: I would favour a third question that asks how we can ease the pain - maybe we can add in parentheses some of the options like versioning, profiling, etc. but not go there as a choice 13:18:53 q+ 13:18:57 ack SueNeu 13:19:33 SueNeu: the purpose of the survey is to get the temperature of the community about this technical change but also to figure out where the pain points are for each area, is that right? 13:19:43 ivan: and also what we can do to ease it 13:20:11 q+ 13:20:14 SueNeu: if we're looking for other data we should rethink it otherwise I think we're good 13:20:14 ack ivan 13:20:43 ivan: if we are good then we have the practicalities - is Gauthier comfortable finishing it the way we discussed 13:20:46 gautierchomel: yes 13:21:24 ivan: it is possible to make it a w3c survey which is proven to be accessible - I am happy to set it up but we need to decide how to disseminate it 13:21:42 wendyreid: should we ask for help from daisy 13:21:46 ivan: and bisg 13:21:54 wendyreid: booknet canada 13:21:58 George; read 2.0 13:22:18 q+ 13:22:29 ack shiestyle 13:22:34 wendyreid: I don't know if want to try translating it and distributing it in other languages, like japanese 13:22:43 shiestyle: how can we prepare a translated version? 13:23:25 ivan: to make it simpler I wonder if we should do one form with the main description in multiple languages and then the answers will come in different languages 13:23:26 present+\ 13:23:30 present+ 13:23:32 ... I am uneasy about sending out separate forms for each language 13:23:59 ivan: we will have to find someone to translate it to Chinese 13:24:14 wendyreid: there may be some people at W3C 13:24:23 ivan: we need both simplified and traditional 13:24:34 shiestyle: we used to have some people in Taiwan 13:24:36 q+ 13:24:39 ack ivan 13:24:39 q+ 13:24:58 q+ 13:25:04 ivan: the other practical question I have is we give it six weeks or a couple of months but how do we work on the results? 13:25:31 ... we'll get answers in free form and it will be hard to synthesize if we have responses in multiple languages 13:25:36 wendyreid: google translate? 13:25:46 ivan: that's possible but I'm not sure I trust it 13:25:49 ack gpellegrino 13:26:16 gpellegrino: for the italian community we are already discussing this with publishers - it is fine to have the survey in English 13:26:26 q+ 13:26:43 ack SueNeu 13:27:13 q- 13:27:14 SueNeu: about how to handle the data we can borrow techniques from the user community they use card sort and start finding common themes 13:28:10 wendyreid: we can try a few techniques like that - we can summarize, use card sort, tagging - let's get the results first 13:28:33 wendyreid: guathier when do you think you can have a draft ready? 13:28:38 gautierchomel: probably by tomorrow 13:28:55 wendyreid: once we have that we can send to a few people to get translations 13:29:28 ivan: I can find someone for Chinese, Shinya I assume you can do Japanese, do we need more translations, like French? 13:29:45 wendyreid: it would be good to have French - we can find someone 13:29:57 wendyreid: Gauthier can you translate? 13:29:58 q+ 13:30:18 ack gpellegrino 13:30:22 gautierchomel: I think we can have a discussion with the French publishers and see if they need one but I can do it 13:30:23 q+ 13:30:57 ack SueNeu 13:31:03 gpellegrino: I think we're overdoing it. Most people in the community should understand English if they are reading our specs? There are so many other language we could translate to 13:31:20 q+ 13:31:27 q- 13:31:30 SueNeu: if we're doing these translations we should also consider Spanish and Portuguese - but I agree this may be overcomplicating things 13:31:49 https://www.w3.org/Translations/?technology=epub-33 13:32:02 wendyreid: I know we've had this issue in the past where it's harder to read for some languages, like Japanese and Chinese 13:32:17 ... if people need assistance we can give a contact to help them 13:32:43 ... we'll put aside broader translation than the language we've already identified 13:33:11 Topic: Dark Mode - https://github.com/w3c/epub-specs/issues/2700 13:33:40 wendyreid: brady gave us a good overview about this at the face-to-face 13:33:57 Hadrien has joined #pmwg 13:34:03 present+ 13:34:06 ... basically the challenge is that css and modern web browsers have introduced light and dark modes 13:34:44 ... interfaces follow the switches in your operating system but the challenge is that reading systems have already had colour themese for some time and people are attached tot them 13:35:14 ... most reading apps have at least four modes, too, sepia, white on black, high contrast, customizable themes 13:35:42 ... the themes don't work for all books - but a book in dark mode and content would disappear because publisher styles would interfere 13:35:56 ... users feel quite strongly about their preferences, however 13:36:11 q+ 13:36:13 ... is there anything we can do about these interactions? 13:36:14 ack Hadrien 13:36:57 Hadrien: I think talking about dark mode is the wrong thing - the general issue is that reflowable epub is whatever you want it to be - if you don't like settings you cna change the look 13:36:57 q+ 13:37:14 ... if users change settings then content won't work perfectly 13:37:49 ... what browsers do is not the issue - can we do something to ensure images are easy to view with any colour combinations - no 13:37:54 q+ 13:38:10 ... we're going to go down a rabbit hole if we dig too deep into trying to solve this 13:38:11 ack Dale 13:38:53 Dale: I've always viewed the epub spec more as a structural guide on how to set up a document, not as a style guide. we're looking at appearance over structure here 13:39:12 ... browsers can override css and it's always been a tug of war over the appearance - epub is the same way 13:39:33 q+ 13:39:34 ... from my point of view we shouldn't try to standardize the appearance 13:39:43 ack ivan 13:40:30 q+ 13:40:41 q- later 13:40:43 ivan: I agree with Hadrien that it's more than just dark mode and the question I have is if you have an epub in your reading system who has the upper hand when the same thing is set by the reading system and the css in the document? is it specified if the reading system or author gets preference? 13:40:58 ack Hadrien 13:41:03 ... does the reader's choice or the document get preference? 13:41:24 duga has joined #pmwg 13:41:26 q+ 13:41:28 Hadrien: most reading systems will let the user decide what they want - some use cascade to get the effect while others mess with the dom 13:41:30 Q+ 13:41:48 q+ 13:41:57 ... it's not so easy because authors abuse styles to get what they want and then reading systems have to undo it 13:41:59 ack wendyreid 13:42:48 wendyreid: it's been an historically significant problem where publishers were not sending good content with decent styling so css was injected to make them look better 13:43:08 ... content creators have been improving the quality of their styling in the last ten years 13:43:34 ... we would show our styling with a default to the publisher styling if the user wanted 13:43:57 q+ 13:44:20 ... the problem is that while font styling has gotten better the colour is increasingly a challenge as publishers use more colour in their content 13:44:41 ... the problem is that as users change the mode this colouring breaks because we don't know all the places it's used 13:45:02 ack ivan 13:45:03 ... we probably need something but I'm not sure what - could be going to css and letting them know there is more than just light and dark 13:45:35 ivan: maybe we should invite someone from the css group to help us explain where they're going with it 13:46:21 ... isn't it necessary to put in the reading system spec a general "should" statement about how to handle clashing css? 13:46:31 ack du 13:48:05 bduga: colour schemes are going to start appearing and we should tell content authors they should not use colour schemes - css does not define light and dark so you can do other things but short of standardizing modes we should discourage use 13:48:13 ack gautierchomel 13:49:15 gautierchomel: I think we should move this to an incubation group 13:49:20 ack George 13:49:45 q+ to respond to George 13:49:56 George: going back decades the debate on who wins goes to the user - we shouldn't go anywhere where that precedent gets changed 13:49:57 ack tzviya 13:49:57 tzviya, you wanted to respond to George 13:50:02 present+ tzviya 13:50:31 q+ 13:50:46 ack ivan 13:50:51 tzviya: I agree in principle what George says is true but in practice it doesn't always work out - we document what should happen instead of what will because of this 13:51:40 ivan: I don't remember anything being documented in the spec 13:51:47 tzviya: no, it was never written that way 13:51:58 ivan: I think that should be done 13:52:46 wendyreid: we need some guidance even if it is not normative - this should go in the reading systems spec as it will affect them 13:52:47 q+ 13:53:08 https://drafts.csswg.org/css-color-adjust-1/#values 13:53:09 ... I also think it's worth discussing this with the css group whether with them or having them come here 13:53:41 ... they have custom values but also a lot of scary language around using them 13:53:48 ack Dale 13:53:57 +1 to talking with CSS group 13:54:22 Dale: I was wondering if this is a bridge that css has already been over - how do reading systems respect or overwrite css 13:54:27 q+ 13:54:30 ack ivan 13:55:18 ivan: the reason why it will be different is that browsers don't give users choices - reading systems do more than they might realize 13:56:14 wendyreid: next steps are to draft some language of what brady suggested and to talk to the css group 13:57:19 ivan: I just realized there is a problem with DC task force is having a meeting now so the meeting minutes will be messed up - can they make a different irc channel 13:57:26 shiestyle: already taken care of 13:57:54 rrsagent, draft minutes 13:57:55 I have made the request to generate https://www.w3.org/2025/05/22-pmwg-minutes.html ivan 13:58:38 toshiakikoike has joined #pmwg 13:59:02 rrsagent, bye 13:59:02 I see no action items