Category: w3cWebOfDevices

The W3C Internationalization Activity has just published First Public Working Drafts for 6 more documents that explore gaps in language support on the World Wide Web.

• Adlam Gap Analysis
• Hebrew Gap Analysis
• German Gap Analysis
• French Gap Analysis
• N’Ko Gap Analysis
• Osage Gap Analysis

These drafts complement the 21 Gap-analysis documents published last June.

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

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.

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/

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.

The Short i18n review checklist points developers of specifications to various aspects of a spec that may need internationalization review. It can also be used by spec reviewers, to get an idea of what to look for in a spec.

Only 12 items long, it follows the format: if the spec or its implementation does X then check Y, and points to the relevant parts of the detailed checklist for more information.

It’s not exhaustive, but it hits the main topics that regularly arise when spec developers are wondering whether their spec may have internationalization issues. If you have comments or questions, please use the GitHub issue list.

The Internationalization Working Group at the W3C has published a new Working Group Note. Character Model for the World Wide Web: String Matching provides authors of specifications, software developers, and content developers a common reference on string identity matching on the World Wide Web and thereby increase interoperability.

String identity matching is the process by which a specification or implementation defines whether two string values are the same or different from one another. It describes the ways in which texts that are semantically equivalent can be encoded differently and the impact this has on matching operations important to formal languages. Topics include normalization and case folding.

Types of language declaration describes how ‘metadata’ and ‘text-processing’ language declarations differ.

HTTP headers, meta elements and language information has been updated to read better, and the information that was to become the previously mentioned article was removed.

This article introduces a number of basic concepts needed to understand other articles that deal with characters and character encodings.

The article has been updated with explanations of the terms ‘user-perceived character’, ‘grapheme-cluster’, ‘typographic character unit’, and ‘glyph’, and a warning about the vague use of the term ‘character’.

Read the article Character encodings: Essential concepts.

This article gives a high level summary of various typographic strategies for wrapping text at the end of a line, for a variety of scripts.

Read the article.

The W3C today launched the Internationalization Initiative to expand core work in further internationalizing the Web. “Supporting the W3C Internationalization Initiative with funding or expertise is a vital way that our Web community creates the future of the global Web,” said Jeff Jaffe, W3C CEO. W3C thanks Alibaba, Apple, Advanced Publishing Lab (Keio University), Monotype, and The Paciello Group who have stepped up as Founding Sponsors. Read about the Sponsorship Program and the press release and testimonials.