Re: extending CSS is unnecessary Re: Abbreviations and Acronyms: [techs] Latest HTML Techniques Draft

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003, Christoph P=E4per wrote:

>*Charles McCathieNevile*:
>>
>> <ruby class=3D"acron">
>> <rb>NATO</rb><rt>North Atlantic Treaty Organisation</rt></ruby>'s
>
>That's not really better than
>
>  <acronym title=3D"North Atlantic Treaty Organisation">NATO</acronym>'s.

It is certainly not worse, and it is part of XHTML 1.1 and current drafts o=
f
XHTML 2, screen presentation can be done with widely implemented CSS1, and
audio presentation can be done with not-so-widely implemented CSS2, in a wa=
y
that provides relatively simple flexibility for users.

>A UA should know to do the right thing when encountering
>
>  <acronym>NATO</abbr>'s
>
>or
>
>  <abbr>NATO</abbr>'s.

Yep. But they don't...

>Because a UA can never know all initialisms, acronyms and other abbreviati=
ons
>of every language,

exactly.

>a author should be able to help it out---outside the
>mark-up. It's quite similar to automatic hyphenation.

Exactly. The main point of my mail was to suggest that we could specify wha=
t
is required in existing CSS, which seems like a big win.

I could have said

  ...<acronym class=3D"accron">NATO</acronym>'s strategy for the <acronym
  class=3D"init">UN</acronym>...

but it means I need to speak the content of the attribute for acronyms, and
that starts to reduce the flexibility and increase the number of things I
rely on. (There is a premise that raw XML is not a hard thing to deal with =
if
you style it...) This is a small point though.

Using ruby instead of a specific acronym or abbreviation element with a tit=
le
attribute makes it more flexible, and easier to specify particular
presentation. As noted elsewhere, different people have different ideas abo=
ut
how to pronounce the same acronym, or whether something really is an acrony=
m,
so I thought it would be more useful to have the pieces up front.

Cheers

Chaals