EPUB 3 Working Group Telco — Minutes

Date: 2021-04-29

See also the Agenda and the IRC Log

Attendees

Present: Masakazu Kitahara, Matthew Chan, Toshiaki Koike, Shinya Takami (高見真也), Wendy Reid, Ben Schroeter, Brady Duga, Marisa DeMeglio, Dan Lazin

Regrets: Wendy Reid

Guests:

Chair: Dave Cramer

Scribe(s): Matthew Chan

Content:

1. TF updates

See github pull request #1654, #1652.

Wendy Reid: both TFs met this week
… FXL TF talked about next steps for best practices, and for experiments
… gpelligrino and I working on experiments
… virtual locators TF discussed use-cases
… moving ahead with CFI
… narrowing down use-cases to identify how specific we have to be in turning CFI into something human readable
… also taking CFI from IDPF space to WG note
… that’s the 2nd PR
… it will make it easier to comment and track changes

Dave Cramer: okay to merge now?

Wendy Reid: yes, unless there is any reason not to
… they are pretty harmless, just adding documentation to github

2. xpointer shorthand

See github issue #1586.

Dave Cramer: this was about using xpointer shorthand as identifiers in MO spec
… xpointer defines all sorts of different fragment identifier schemes
… do any implementations of MO use anything other than HTML #id?

Marisa DeMeglio: not that I know

Dave Cramer: yes, that matches my experience too

Marisa DeMeglio: the intention in MO was to say “refer to fragment identifier”
… what happened was that that idea got formalized into xpointer shorthand
… it was a suggestion from JP reviewers of epub 3
… but intention was not changed

Dave Cramer: so we were trying to find a stable spec reference to reflect that concept

Marisa DeMeglio: yes

Dave Cramer: and these were also more XML centric times
… i think its worth exploring a simply way of expressing this without misleading authors that they can use anything in xpointer

Marisa DeMeglio: yes. I think encouraging ease of use will increase adoption

Dave Cramer: when Microsoft was trying to implement epub in Edge, they had questions about this use of xpointer too

Wendy Reid: was there a MO test in the old epubtest?

Marisa DeMeglio: yes, it was massive and hard to pass test
… but that old site isn’t really up to date

Dave Cramer: but i think there are quite a few implementations of MO
… but this is enough info to move forward on the issue
… I’ll assign myself to find a better spec reference for what we are trying to say about fragment identifiers

3. SHOULD for “valid language tags”

See github issue #1509.

Dave Cramer: during i18n review, we saw that some specs use SHOULD for validity of language tags
… we don’t say anything about validity
… and we had a previous resolution to close issue without forcing validity
… part of consideration was not increasing complexity for epubcheck
… I also feel this will affect a diminishing number of epubs that have well formed yet invalid lang tags
… given that RS don’t tend to do much that lang tag info anyway

Ben Schroeter: can we clarify difference?

Dave Cramer: it follows the normal pattern e.g. en-US
… qq-ZQ would also be well formed, if most likely invalid

Shinya Takami (高見真也): if RS cannot recognize the tag, its still okay in many cases
… so i think validation is not mandatory

Proposed resolution: Close issue 1509 (Wendy Reid)

Dave Cramer: +1

Dan Lazin: +1

Shinya Takami (高見真也): +1

Wendy Reid: +1

Matthew Chan: +1

Toshiaki Koike: +1

Ben Schroeter: +1

Brady Duga: +1

Resolution #1: Close issue 1509

4. RS handling of non-Arabic page numbers in pagelist

See github issue #1505.

Dave Cramer: this came up because gregorio asking about rules for non-Arabic page numbers
… answer seemed to be that there are no rules
… pagelist is just list of links, authors choose how to label those links
… issue discussion started to revolve around counter systems used around the world
… but this seems like an aside

Brady Duga: also, we have no rules for Arabic page numbers either
… we have no rules for page numbers, period

Dave Cramer: maybe we could recommend that if RS choose to display numbers from pagelist, that RS should display the values chosen by author
… e.g. where author has carefully chosen the type and sequence of page numbers

Brady Duga: agree (also, it seems obvious that RS shouldn’t do stuff like that)

Dave Cramer: yes, and also, the original concern seems somewhat theoretical

Proposed resolution: Close issue 1505 (Wendy Reid)

Dave Cramer: +1

Wendy Reid: +1

Ben Schroeter: +1

Toshiaki Koike: +1

Matthew Chan: +1

Brady Duga: +1

Shinya Takami (高見真也): +1

Dan Lazin: +1

Resolution #2: Close issue 1505

5. Handling gaps in pagelist

See github issue #1504.

Dave Cramer: question of whether RS should interpolate between explicit page numbers if it encountered gaps
… e.g. where an epub without page numbers was remediated by adding page references to only the first page of each chapter
… if the RS even allowed a user to “go to” page and user entered in a number in one of the gaps
… i would expect RS to say “page does not exist”
… interpolation does not seem a workable solution

Brady Duga: yes, that’s what Google does
… if you enter something that doesn’t match a pagelist value, we don’t go anywhere
… if you enter a match, then we take you to the destination of the pagelist

Ben Schroeter: what about gregorio’s question about guidance to authors to include pagelist link to all pages

Brady Duga: there might be pages in the print that are not in epub, blank pages, out of order pages (i.e. frontmatter moved to back)
… numerous reasons for lack of 1-to-1 correspondence

Proposed resolution: Close issue 1504 (Wendy Reid)

Ben Schroeter: +1

Shinya Takami (高見真也): +1

Brady Duga: +1

Dave Cramer: +1

Wendy Reid: +1

Matthew Chan: +1

Toshiaki Koike: +1

Resolution #3: Close issue 1504

Dave Cramer: some of this may be best practice for how to create pagelist, but that’s outside scope of core spec

Matthew Chan: shiestyle addresses JP members in Japanese

Shinya Takami (高見真也): I just confirmed whether Voyager is using pagelist
… i don’t think many JP RS do

6. F2F Dates

Wendy Reid: we settled on may 27/28
… we have only just started talking about the agenda
… so please raise issues that are worthwhile for the whole group
… they are a good opportunity for us to connect with other W3C WG for cross-over issues
… e.g. the mini-apps WG
… may invite them for at least part of one of the days
… our main agenda idea is to tackle the “list of issues”
… e.g., the scripting meeting would probably be a F2F topic

Dan Lazin: i would like to talk about dark mode
… this disproportionately affects epub, and is also widely implemented

Dave Cramer: also one of the most jarring things in epub, often not well implemented

Wendy Reid: please keep sending in agenda item ideas

Dave Cramer: F2F is also better for longer issues that don’t fit well into the weekly 1hr format

Wendy Reid: so it’ll be 2 three hour meetings, with breaks
… one at this time slot, and with the next day being the other time slot

7. AOB?

Dave Cramer: okay, thanks everyone
… see you all on github

8. Resolutions