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+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #20115 +++ From: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-whatwg-archive/2012Nov/0370.html When you want to create double-sided ruby, with the ruby text on both sides of base text, the current HTML model posits two separate and fairly different markup models. In the first, when the group boundaries for both ruby text runs are the same, it allows you to have two <rt>s following an <rb>, with the obvious meaning. In the second, when the group boundaries do *not* line up (in particular, for the common case where one line of ruby is per-character and the other is for the whole group, such as with a pinyin and English translation), it requires you to nest two <ruby> elements, with the inner one supplying the per-character annotations and the outer supplying the whole-group ones. Having to learn and use two different markup patterns for two nearly identical use-cases is sub-optimal for authors. It would be best if they could just learn one model that works for both. On the implementation side, this also requires two different layout models for essentially the exact same thing. This is unnecessarily complicated; again, one simple way to get both would be preferred. This is easy to address. Add an <rtc> element (name taken from the XHTML Ruby module), which is used for the second line of text. You can fill an <rtc> with <rt> elements, in which case they match up index-wise with the preceding run of <rb> elements. The last <rt> (or, if no <rt>s were given at all, the naked text that was implicitly wrapped in an <rt>) automatically spans the remaining bases in the preceding run. This makes both cases trivial. If both runs of ruby are per-character, you can just write: <ruby><rb>FOO<rb>BAR<rt>baz1<rt>baz2<rtc><rt>qux1<rt>qux2</ruby> Or, in the pure column-based model: <ruby>FOO<rt>baz1<rtc>qux1<rb>BAR<rt>baz2<rtc>qux2</ruby> Alternately, if the second line of ruby text spans the entire group, that's also trivial, and very simlar: <ruby><rb>FOO<rb>BAR<rt>baz1<rt>baz2<rtc>qux1 qux2</ruby> As you can see, the only difference is that the <rtc> contains a single (implicit) <rt>, rather than two <rt>s. It seems plainly obviously that this is simpler for authors; it's also simpler for implementors, because we don't have to infer that we should be formatting something as double-ruby from the presence of nested <ruby> elements.
HTML5.1 Bugzilla Bug Triage: This bug constitutes a request for a new feature of HTML. Our current guidelines, rather than track such requests as bugs or issues, is to create a proposal for the desired behavior, or at least a sketch of what is wanted (much of which is probably contained in this bug), and start the discussion/proposal in the WICG (https://www.w3.org/community/wicg/). As your idea gains interest and momentum, it may be brought back into HTML through the Intent to Migrate process (https://wicg.github.io/admin/intent-to-migrate.html).