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The line position is actually more referring to the concept of a cue box than to the concept of a line. The first sentence states "The line position defines the position of the cue box.". It would be could to have a term that describe this "feature" as an property of the cue box instead of lines. As the syntax maybe hard to change it could help if a synonymous word could be found. As per feedback by Andreas Tai: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-texttracks/2015Feb/0005.html
Maybe "cue position"?
Futher feedback by Andreas: Furthermore a relationship to text position could be used in addition. While text position "defines the positioning of the cue box in the direction defined by the writing direction", the line positon defines the position of the cue box orthogonal to the direction defined by the writing direction (?).
The names on VTTCue seem pretty sensible to me: line and position. We could possibly call the concepts simply "A line" and "A position" too, but would that be any clearer? I guess "A line position" is a bit less wrong when it comes to percentage line positions.
x and y dimensions don't work either because line and position depend on the writing direction. We could start using "offset". How about improving the definition of "text position" and "line position": The text position defines the offset of the cue box in the direction defined by the writing direction. "position alignment" then defines what that offset is anchored at wrt the cue box: start, middle or end of cue box in direction defined by the writing direction. The line position defines the offset of the cue box orthogonal to the direction defined by the writing direction. "line alignment" then defines what that offset is anchored at wrt the cue box: start, middle or end of cue box in direction orthogonal to the direction defined by the writing direction.
Makes sense to me.(In reply to Silvia Pfeiffer from comment #4) > x and y dimensions don't work either because line and position depend on the > writing direction. > > We could start using "offset". > > > How about improving the definition of "text position" and "line position": > > The text position defines the offset of the cue box in the direction defined > by the writing direction. > > "position alignment" then defines what that offset is anchored at wrt the > cue box: start, middle or end of cue box in direction defined by the writing > direction. > > The line position defines the offset of the cue box orthogonal to the > direction defined by the writing direction. > > "line alignment" then defines what that offset is anchored at wrt the cue > box: start, middle or end of cue box in direction orthogonal to the > direction defined by the writing direction. Makes sense to me.
In my own reading of the spec, the definitions (which could be improved) aren't the biggest source of confusion. Rather it's that the labels "line position" and "text position" are easy enough to confuse, in particular I often have to check if "line position" corresponds to VTTCue.line or VTTCue.position.
(In reply to Philip Jägenstedt from comment #6) > In my own reading of the spec, the definitions (which could be improved) > aren't the biggest source of confusion. Rather it's that the labels "line > position" and "text position" are easy enough to confuse, in particular I > often have to check if "line position" corresponds to VTTCue.line or > VTTCue.position. How about "line offset" and "text offset" then? That clarifies "line position"...
(In reply to Silvia Pfeiffer from comment #7) > (In reply to Philip Jägenstedt from comment #6) > > In my own reading of the spec, the definitions (which could be improved) > > aren't the biggest source of confusion. Rather it's that the labels "line > > position" and "text position" are easy enough to confuse, in particular I > > often have to check if "line position" corresponds to VTTCue.line or > > VTTCue.position. > > How about "line offset" and "text offset" then? That clarifies "line > position"... Actually, "text position" remains, of course. But "line offset" could work.
I've given it a go at https://github.com/w3c/webvtt/pull/194 . See what you think.
Merged.
Reopened due to https://github.com/w3c/webvtt/pull/194#issuecomment-110051562
Further improvements in https://github.com/w3c/webvtt/pull/197 . IMO that change has made things much clearer. The word offset works really well because it explains clearly what the lines are offset from, i.e. which side of the video viewport.
Fix landed. Please open new bugs if you want to further tweak the language.
wording improved (line offset, etc.)
There has been a long discussion about this issue and the current status in the draft seems to reflect what can be achieved. Therefore, I accept that only part of the original proposal can be addressed. From my view the original PR (https://github.com/w3c/webvtt/pull/197) was a good pragmatic way to solve the problem. By disconnecting the terminology from the "cue" concept in PR 211 (https://github.com/w3c/webvtt/pull/211) the solution was reverted and the situation has not really improved. But because it seems not possible to come to another agreement, the dependencies between the different parts make terminology changes very difficult and also because this has been in the draft now for 2 years, it seems best to not start the discussion again.
Hi Andreas, Thanks for going through all your bugs and accepting the decisions! On this bug FYI: in the end we renamed "line position" to "line offset", so we actually did accept the change.
Hi Silvia, The full comment in my email was as follows: " The line position is actually more referring to the concept of a cue box than to the concept of a line. The first sentence states "The line position defines the position of the cue box.". It would be could to have a term that describe this "feature" as an property of the cue box instead of lines. As the syntax maybe hard to change it could help if a synonymous word could be found. Furthermore a relationship to text position could be used in addition. While text position "defines the positioning of the cue box in the direction defined by the writing direction", the line positon defines the position of the cue box orthogonal to the direction defined by the writing direction (?)." In the version I reviewed Feb 2015 the terms have been: "line position" and "text position" Now the terms are: "line" and "position" If you read just the first sentences of each concept it seems a bit circular: line: The line defines positioning of the cue box. position: The position defines the indent of the cue box in the direction defined by the writing direction. "line offset" is used in the description once ("The line offsets the cue box from the top...") but not as the name of the concept. So overall, I am not sure if it is now better then before. (I use as reference the latest editor draft from 25th of June 2017)
A cue box is position by counting lines from the top and a percentage indent from the left. That's why they use of the word "line" makes sense - and the wording "line offset" has been used to describe it. You seem to have more of a problem with the word "position" though - it would probably have been better to use "indent" for it, but that's likely a bit too late. May it would be best to add a drawing that explains the concepts. The words we choose are always going to be ambiguous to some people. Also, we could make just a simple change from: "line: The line defines positioning of the cue box." to "line: The line defines the offset of the cue box."