Category: Highlight

CSS defines the typographic character unit as a basic unit of text for use with editing operations, however the meaning of that term can vary according to the operation, and there are issues in working with such units in complex scripts. In this article we look at examples of some of those differences and issues.

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The article Use cases for bidi and language metadata on the Web is out for wide review. We are looking for comments by Thursday 11 March.

The W3C Internationalisation Working Group recommends that data formats and string data are always associated with information about text direction and language. This is to ensure that the data can be correctly managed when displayed to a user. This article explores use cases that substantiate the need for this type of information.

Please send any comments as github issues by clicking on this link, or on “Leave a comment” at the bottom of the article. (This will add some useful information to your comment.)

The article Typographic character units in complex scripts is out for wide review. We are looking for comments by Thurday 25 February.

CSS defines the typographic character unit as a basic unit of text for use with editing operations, however the meaning of a that term can vary according to the operation, and there are issues in working with such units in complex scripts. In this article we look at examples of some of those differences and issues.

Please send any comments as github issues by clicking on this link, or on “Leave a comment” at the bottom of the article. (This will add some useful information to your comment.)

The CSS Logical Properties and Values spec allows authors to specify margins, captions, etc. using declarations that are valid without change whether text is horizontal LTR or RTL, or vertical LR/RL. Values have names such as -start/-end, rather than -left/-right.

These new tests look at support for values in RTL and vertical LR/RL contexts. They cover block size, margins, padding, border width/style/color/radius, caption side, & floats.

The test results, and links to the tests themselves, can be found at
https://w3c.github.io/i18n-tests/results/css-logical.html

In preparation for publication as a Working Group Note, we are seeking wide review of the document Rules for Simple Placement of Japanese Ruby. We are looking for comments by Friday 26 July.

The Japanese layout requirements document describes some complex aspects of ruby handling, and frequently offers alternative possible approaches. This document provides a single, simple set of rules for placement of Ruby text in Japanese typography which can be used as a minimal baseline by implementers and spec developers.

Please send any comments as github issues.

Following on from the publication of gap-analyis documents as FPWD, three more documents have been published as FPWD that contain information about how Tamil, Mongolian, and Tibetan orthographies work. These documents are intended to support the gap-analysis work.

Tamil Layout Requirements
https://www.w3.org/TR/ilreq-taml/

Mongolian Layout Requirements
https://www.w3.org/TR/mlreq/

Requirements for Tibetan Text Layout and Typography
https://www.w3.org/TR/tlreq/

The W3C Internationalization Activity has just published First Public Working Drafts for 21 documents that explore gaps in language support on the Worldwide Web. Some of these documents are from individual contributors, whereas others are the result of work in a language enablement task force. The list below points to the location of the FPWD and also to the relevant group home page or to the relevant GitHub repository where the work was done.

We are looking for expert contributors who can help us move this work forward by answering questions, documenting gaps in support, and creating tests. For more information about the program, see this 15 minute overview (slides).

Arabic & Persian Gap Analysis
https://www.w3.org/TR/alreq-gap/
https://github.com/w3c/alreq/

Chinese Layout Gap Analysis
https://www.w3.org/TR/clreq-gap/
https://github.com/w3c/clreq/

Ethiopic Layout Gap Analysis
https://www.w3.org/TR/elreq-gap/
https://github.com/w3c/elreq/

Dutch Gap Analysis
https://www.w3.org/TR/latn-nl-gap/
https://github.com/w3c/eurlreq/

Georgian Gap Analysis
https://www.w3.org/TR/geor-gap/
https://github.com/w3c/eurlreq/

Modern Greek Gap Analysis
https://www.w3.org/TR/grek-gap/
https://github.com/w3c/eurlreq/

Hungarian Gap Analysis
https://www.w3.org/TR/latn-hu-gap/
https://github.com/w3c/eurlreq/

Bengali Gap Analysis
https://www.w3.org/TR/beng-gap/
https://github.com/w3c/iip/

Devanagari Gap Analysis
https://www.w3.org/TR/deva-gap/
https://github.com/w3c/iip/

Gurmukhi Gap Analysis
https://www.w3.org/TR/guru-gap/
https://github.com/w3c/iip/

Gujarati Gap Analysis
https://www.w3.org/TR/gujr-gap/
https://github.com/w3c/iip/

Tamil Gap Analysis
https://www.w3.org/TR/taml-gap/
https://github.com/w3c/iip/

Japanese Gap Analysis
https://www.w3.org/TR/jpan-gap/
https://github.com/w3c/jlreq/

Inuktitut & Cree Gap Analysis
https://www.w3.org/TR/cans-iu-cr-gap/
https://github.com/w3c/amlreq/

Cherokee Gap Analysis
https://www.w3.org/TR/cher-gap/
https://github.com/w3c/amlreq/

Lao Gap Analysis
https://www.w3.org/TR/laoo-gap/
https://github.com/w3c/sealreq/

Khmer Gap Analysis
https://www.w3.org/TR/khmr-gap/
https://github.com/w3c/sealreq/

Javanese Script Gap Analysis
https://www.w3.org/TR/java-gap/
https://github.com/w3c/sealreq/

Thai Script Gap Analysis
https://www.w3.org/TR/thai-gap/
https://github.com/w3c/sealreq/

Mongolian Gap Analysis
https://www.w3.org/TR/mong-gap/
https://github.com/w3c/mlreq/

Tibetan Gap Analysis
https://www.w3.org/TR/tibt-gap/
https://github.com/w3c/tlreq/

If you are linking to headings and figures for a page that will be translated into another language, or for a multilingual page, this article looks at things you need to bear in mind and provides markup templates that will be helpful.

Read the article.

The article Internationalization tips for linking to headings & figures is out for wide review. We are looking for comments by Tuesday 6 July.

If you are linking to headings and figures for a page that will be translated into another language, or for a multilingual page, this article looks at things you need to bear in mind and provides markup templates that will be helpful.

Please send any comments as github issues by clicking on this link, or on “Leave a comment” at the bottom of the article. (This will add some useful information to your comment.)

A First Public Working Draft of Strings on the Web: Language and Direction Metadata was published.

This document describes practices for identifying language and base direction for strings used on the Web. It was developed as a result of observations by the Internationalization Working Group over a series of specification reviews related to formats based on JSON, WebIDL, and other non-markup data languages. Unlike markup formats, such as XML, these data languages generally do not provide extensible attributes and were not conceived with built-in language or direction metadata.

The concepts in this document are applicable any time strings are used on the Web, either as part of a formalised data structure, but also where they simply originate from JavaScript scripting or any stored list of strings.

Public comments are welcome, please raise them as github issues.