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

Christoph Päper <[email protected]> Fri, 12 Dec 2003 16:34:34 +0100
Newsgroups gmane.comp.web.html.general,gmane.org.w3c.accessibility.guidelines
Message-ID <[email protected]>
*Charles McCathieNevile*:
> On Fri, 12 Dec 2003, Christoph P=E4per wrote:
>
>>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
> what is required in existing CSS, which seems like a big win.

You missed my point. Regardless of ways of implementation, I don't want t=
o
clutter my pages with

  <abbr title=3D"for example">e. g.</abbr>

nor

  <ruby class=3D"abbr"><rb>e. g.</rb><rt>for example</rt></ruby>

or

  <abbr><ruby><rb>e. g.</rb><rt>for example</rt></ruby></abbr>,

but I'm willing to write

  <abbr>e. g.</abbr>

each time used, because of

  abbr {word-spacing: -0.2em}

and the hope that browsers that should do so, replace it automatically.
Of course "e. g." is common enough to expect screen-readers et al. to kno=
w it,
but I'm neither willing to write out (in an extra element xor attribute)
lesser known abbreviations every time. Likely I don't want to add &shy; a=
t
every possible hyphenation point, but would gladly accept to include

  <link rel=3D"hyphenationary" href=3D"webdesign.en.hyph"/>,

if standardised and supported.

P.S.: I'm on the list, so no need for an extra copy.