[css-text] I18N-ISSUE-317: Line breaking property and value names

State: OPEN Product: CSS3-text Raised by: Richard Ishida Opened on: 2013-12-11 Description: 5. Line Breaking and Word Boundaries http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/WD-css-text-3-20131010/#line-breaking I have always found the naming of the properties in section 5 a little confusing, and I'm guessing others will too. In the spec, the titles seem to attempt to clarify the meaning, though I don't think it's very successful. The line-break property is only concerned with a detail of one aspect of line-breaking, although it sounds like the most important property for handling line breaks. I propose that we change the following: [[ line-break auto loose normal strict word-break normal keep-all break-all ]] to: [[ line-break-strictness auto loose normal strict line-break-style or line-break-type normal force-character force-word ]] and that, whether or not we change the names, to help people learning about line-breaking from the spec, we put the word-break/line-break-style section first, and follow it by line-break/line-break-strictness.

I share your concern. The problem is that these two properties were implemented more than 10 years ago and are widely used. Chromium Dashboard[1] indicates that “word-break” is used in 30% of pages. “webkit-line-break” is low, at 0.1%, but I suppose this is because Blink implements “webkit-line-break” but not “line-break”. I consider 0.1% of the whole Internet is still high, but it should be even higher. We could potentially rename them and still keep the old names as aliases. We did this for word-wrap/overflow-wrap, which raised some discussions[2][3]. Do you think, the benefits of the renaming wins over the cost? [1] http://www.chromestatus.com/metrics/css/popularity [2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Jan/0258.html [3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Jan/0264.html /koji On Jan 25, 2014, at 3:23 AM, Phillips, Addison <addison@lab126.com> wrote: > State: > OPEN > Product: > CSS3-text > Raised by: > Richard Ishida > Opened on: > 2013-12-11 > Description: > 5. Line Breaking and Word Boundaries > http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/WD-css-text-3-20131010/#line-breaking > > I have always found the naming of the properties in section 5 a little confusing, and I'm guessing others will too. In the spec, the titles seem to attempt to clarify the meaning, though I don't think it's very successful. > > The line-break property is only concerned with a detail of one aspect of line-breaking, although it sounds like the most important property for handling line breaks. > > I propose that we change the following: > > [[ > line-break > auto > loose > normal > strict > > word-break > normal > keep-all > break-all > ]] > > to: > > [[ > line-break-strictness > auto > loose > normal > strict > > line-break-style or line-break-type > normal > force-character > force-word > ]] > > and that, whether or not we change the names, to help people learning about line-breaking from the spec, we put the word-break/line-break-style section first, and follow it by line-break/line-break-strictness. > > >

Discussed with fantasai, she agreed that changing the name costs too much given they were available for a decade or more without prefixing. The order of ‘line-break’ and ‘word-break’ was changed as you suggested. /koji On Apr 21, 2014, at 1:31 AM, Koji Ishii <kojiishi@gluesoft.co.jp> wrote: > I share your concern. The problem is that these two properties were implemented more than 10 years ago and are widely used. Chromium Dashboard[1] indicates that “word-break” is used in 30% of pages. “webkit-line-break” is low, at 0.1%, but I suppose this is because Blink implements “webkit-line-break” but not “line-break”. I consider 0.1% of the whole Internet is still high, but it should be even higher. > > We could potentially rename them and still keep the old names as aliases. We did this for word-wrap/overflow-wrap, which raised some discussions[2][3]. > > Do you think, the benefits of the renaming wins over the cost? > > [1] http://www.chromestatus.com/metrics/css/popularity > [2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Jan/0258.html > [3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Jan/0264.html > > /koji > > On Jan 25, 2014, at 3:23 AM, Phillips, Addison <addison@lab126.com> wrote: > >> State: >> OPEN >> Product: >> CSS3-text >> Raised by: >> Richard Ishida >> Opened on: >> 2013-12-11 >> Description: >> 5. Line Breaking and Word Boundaries >> http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/WD-css-text-3-20131010/#line-breaking >> >> I have always found the naming of the properties in section 5 a little confusing, and I'm guessing others will too. In the spec, the titles seem to attempt to clarify the meaning, though I don't think it's very successful. >> >> The line-break property is only concerned with a detail of one aspect of line-breaking, although it sounds like the most important property for handling line breaks. >> >> I propose that we change the following: >> >> [[ >> line-break >> auto >> loose >> normal >> strict >> >> word-break >> normal >> keep-all >> break-all >> ]] >> >> to: >> >> [[ >> line-break-strictness >> auto >> loose >> normal >> strict >> >> line-break-style or line-break-type >> normal >> force-character >> force-word >> ]] >> >> and that, whether or not we change the names, to help people learning about line-breaking from the spec, we put the word-break/line-break-style section first, and follow it by line-break/line-break-strictness. >> >> >> >

The i18n WG is sorry that there isn't a better resolution available, but has closed this issue. Thanks! RI On 13/05/2014 19:54, Koji Ishii wrote: > Discussed with fantasai, she agreed that changing the name costs too much given they were available for a decade or more without prefixing. > > The order of ‘line-break’ and ‘word-break’ was changed as you suggested. > > /koji > > On Apr 21, 2014, at 1:31 AM, Koji Ishii <kojiishi@gluesoft.co.jp> wrote: > >> I share your concern. The problem is that these two properties were implemented more than 10 years ago and are widely used. Chromium Dashboard[1] indicates that “word-break” is used in 30% of pages. “webkit-line-break” is low, at 0.1%, but I suppose this is because Blink implements “webkit-line-break” but not “line-break”. I consider 0.1% of the whole Internet is still high, but it should be even higher. >> >> We could potentially rename them and still keep the old names as aliases. We did this for word-wrap/overflow-wrap, which raised some discussions[2][3]. >> >> Do you think, the benefits of the renaming wins over the cost? >> >> [1] http://www.chromestatus.com/metrics/css/popularity >> [2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Jan/0258.html >> [3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Jan/0264.html >> >> /koji >> >> On Jan 25, 2014, at 3:23 AM, Phillips, Addison <addison@lab126.com> wrote: >> >>> State: >>> OPEN >>> Product: >>> CSS3-text >>> Raised by: >>> Richard Ishida >>> Opened on: >>> 2013-12-11 >>> Description: >>> 5. Line Breaking and Word Boundaries >>> http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/WD-css-text-3-20131010/#line-breaking >>> >>> I have always found the naming of the properties in section 5 a little confusing, and I'm guessing others will too. In the spec, the titles seem to attempt to clarify the meaning, though I don't think it's very successful. >>> >>> The line-break property is only concerned with a detail of one aspect of line-breaking, although it sounds like the most important property for handling line breaks. >>> >>> I propose that we change the following: >>> >>> [[ >>> line-break >>> auto >>> loose >>> normal >>> strict >>> >>> word-break >>> normal >>> keep-all >>> break-all >>> ]] >>> >>> to: >>> >>> [[ >>> line-break-strictness >>> auto >>> loose >>> normal >>> strict >>> >>> line-break-style or line-break-type >>> normal >>> force-character >>> force-word >>> ]] >>> >>> and that, whether or not we change the names, to help people learning about line-breaking from the spec, we put the word-break/line-break-style section first, and follow it by line-break/line-break-strictness. >>> >>> >>> >> > > >