Gap analysis checklist
Ethiopic script for HTML/CSS
(Draft)
The W3C needs to make sure that the text layout and typographic needs of scripts and languages around the world are built in to technologies such as HTML, CSS, SVG, etc. so that Web pages and eBooks can look and behave as people expect around the world.
This page is a checklist of items to consider when investigating the level of support that is provided for a given script or language. If you want to raise an issue or comment against this page, use the github issues list.
Each section starts with a prompt in italicised text, intended to help you think of things that might be addressed in that section. When summarising the situation, try to indicate which languages you are covering with your text. Use separate subheadings where there are divergent issues related to specific languages.
For each section element with a topic class, add one of the following classes to that section tag. Then add any useful comments in the following section element with the details class.
- ok (no problems)
- na (not applicable)
- advanced (work needed to support advanced applications, such as fine quality book production)
- basic (work needed to support basic styling for basic web page use)
- broken (work needed to enable interoperable semantics, or basic display on the Web).
Characters & phrases
Encoding considerations
Are there any character repertoire issues preventing use of this script on the Web? Do variation selectors need attention?
Font styles
Do the standard fallback fonts used in browsers match expectations? Are special font features needed for this script that are not available? Do italic fonts lean in the right direction? See available information or check for currently needed data.
Glyph control
Does this script require additional work to support altering the position or shape of glyphs, for example adjusting the distance between the base text and diacritics, or changing the glyphs used in a systematic way? See available information or check for currently needed data.
Gemination and vowel length marks are typically at a fixed height above the tallest character in printed material, but in handwriting the marks are just above the base character, and therefore at varying heights. It's not clear, however, that a control is needed for ajusting such diacritic heights.
Cursive text
If this script is cursive (eg. Arabic, N'Ko, Syriac, etc), are there problems or needed features related to the handling of cursive text? See available information or check for currently needed data.
Text boundaries and selection
When you double- or triple-click on the text, is the expected range of characters highlighted? When you move through the text with the cursor, or backspace, etc. do you see the expected behaviour? Are there issues when applying punctuation than could be fixed by the application? See available information or check for currently needed data.
There's a question about whether double-click selection should pick up the wordspace character as well (it does in MS Word, but spaces are not picked up in Firefox for text with normal spaces between words...).
Quotations
Are there any issues when dealing with quotations marks, especially when nested? Should block quotes be indented or handled specially? See available information or check for currently needed data.
Numbers and digits
If the script has its own set of number digits, are there any issues in how they are used? Does the script or language use special format patterns that are problematic? See available information or check for currently needed data.
Digits have lines above and below. Modern practice tends to use discreet lines associated with each characters, however older texts used a single line across the whole set of adjacent digits. This difference is likely due to technology constraints. Presumbaly, a continuous line could be applied using OpenType functionality, but there may be a question about whether a control should allow to switch between one style and the other.
Transforming characters
Does your script need special text transforms that are not supported? Does your script convert letters to uppercase, capitalised and lowercase alternatives according to your typographic needs? Do you need to to convert between half-width and full-width presentation forms? See available information or check for currently needed data.
There should be a way to automatically convert word-space characters to ordinary spaces, and vice versa.
Inter-character spacing
Many scripts create emphasis or other effects by spacing out the letters or syllables in a word. We know there are questions here about how this should work in Indic and SE Asian scripts, and in Arabic-based scripts. Are there requirements for other scripts that we should add? (For justification related spacing, see below.) See available information or check for currently needed data.
Ruby annotation
The ruby spec currently specifies an initial subset of requirements for fine-tuning the typography of phonetic and semantic annotations of East Asian text, including furigana, pinyin and zhuyin fuhao systems. Is is adequate for what it sets out to do? What other controls will be needed in the future? See available information or check for currently needed data.
Text decoration
Some aspects related to the drawing of lines alongside or through text involve local typographic considerations. Do underlines need to be broken in special ways for this script? Do you need support for additional line shapes or widths? Does the distance or position of the lines relative to the text need to vary in ways that are not achievable? Are lines correctly drawn relative to vertical text? See available information or check for currently needed data.
Underlines in Ethiopic text need to be thicker than in English text. Some control is needed over the thickness of the underline. This may be an advanced issue.
When underlining a word followed by an ethiopic wordspace, the punctuation should also receive the underline. This is not currently allowed in the CSS spec. This seems like a basic issue.
Emphasis & highlights
Bold and italic are not always appropriate for expressing emphasis, and some scripts have their own unique ways of doing it, that are not in the Western tradition at all. Does this script require support for emphasising or highlighting text that cannot be achieved currently? See available information or check for currently needed data.
When highlightin or emphasising a word followed by an ethiopic wordspace, the punctuation should also receive the highlight. This includes underlines, for which there is currently an issue (see above).
Inline notes, etc.
Does your script have special ways of representing inline notes (such as wakiten or kumimoji in Japanese) or other inline features that need to be supported? See available information or check for currently needed data.
Bidirectional text
If this script runs right-to-left, are there any issues when handling that? Is bidirectional text adequately supported? See available information or check for currently needed data.
Lines & paragraphs
Line breaking
Does the browser capture the rules about the way text in your script wraps when it hits the end of a line? What characters should not appear at the end or start of a line, and what should be done to prevent that? Does line-breaking wrap whole 'words' at a time, or characters, or something else (such as syllables in Tibetan)? See available information or check for currently needed data.
Need to run a test to check whether the ethiopic characters that shouldn't appear at line end/start behave as expected given the elreq rules.
And need to test whether lines break between characters. Firefox appears to allow this, but Chrome and Safari wrap whole words (with wordspace) instead. Marking this, therefore, as basic issue. Need to check what the CSS spec says.
Hyphenation
Is hyphenation used for your script, or something else? If hyphenation is used, does it work as expected? See available information or check for currently needed data.
There seems to be a question about whether hyphenation is useful.
Justification & line-end alignment
When text in a paragraph needs to have flush lines down both sides, does it follow the rules for your script? Does the script need assistance to conform to a grid pattern? Does your script allow punctuation to hang outside the text box at the start or end of a line? Where adjustments are need to make a line flush, how is that done? Do you shrink/stretch space between words and/or letters? Are word baselines stretched, as in Arabic? See available information or check for currently needed data.
When text uses ethiopic wordspace the wordspace should expand to assist in justification. Need some tests to check whether than happens. This is a basic issue, so if tests fail, we need to change the status of this section.
However, there need to be some rules about how to position the ink within the wordspace character (with the word, or centred), and a control to allow the preferred style of positioning. I'm classifying that as an advanced control. See the requirements.
Counters, lists, etc
The CSS Counter Styles specification describes a limited set of simple and complex styles for counters to be used in list numbering, chapter heading numbering, etc. Are the details correct? We have another document that provides over 120 templates for user-defined counter styles in over 30 scripts. Are there more? Are there other aspects related to counters and lists that need to be addressed? See available information or check for currently needed data.
Ethiopic script text uses local counter styles. While some of these are supported by some browsers, the set of symbols used and their order varies by language. Custom counter styles can be created using Firefox only. The CSS spec needs to become a Rec and more browsers need to support it.
There is also a question (which is probably an advanced issue) about whether counters should align to the left or right.
Initial letter styling
Does the browser or ereader correctly handle special styling of the initial letter of a line or paragraph, such as for drop caps or similar?
See available information or check for currently needed data.
?
Baselines & inline alignment
Does the browser support requirements for baseline alignment between mixed scripts and in general? See available information or check for currently needed data.
White space and wrapping in source code
Do the rules for transforming white space in the source text for display meet the requirements of your script? This is particularly relevant for Far Eastern and South East Asian scripts, that don't use spaces between words.
Other paragraph features
In your script, is the first line of text typically indented at the start of a paragraph? Are there other features of paragraph design that are peculiar to your script? See available information or check for currently needed data.
There are various expectations about whether paragraphs begin with an indented line or not, but i think these can be addressed with current technology.
There is also a question about whether the technology should allow a new paragraph to start on the same line as the last item in a list (with a gap between the two). It is not yet a clear requirement.
Layout & pages
Bidirectional layout
When content can flow vertically and to the left or right, how do you specify the location of objects, text, etc. relative to the flow? For example, keywords 'left' and 'right' are likely to need to be reversed for pages written in English and page written in Arabic. See available information or check for currently needed data.
Vertical text
Are the script requirements for vertically oriented text met? What about if you mix vertical text with scripts that are normally only horizontal? Do you need a switch to use different characters in vertical vs. horizontal text? Does the browser support short runs of horizontal text in vertical lines (tate-chu-yoko in Japanese) as expected? Is the orientation of characters and the directional ordering of characters supported as needed? See available information.
Notes, footnotes, etc
Does your script have special requirements for notes, footnotes, endnotes or other necessary annotations of this kind in the way needed for your culture? See available information or check for currently needed data.
Page numbering, running headers, etc
Are there special conventions for page numbering, or the way that running headers and the like are handled? See available information or check for currently needed data.
Assumed to be same as for English, in general. However, elreq proposes that users should be able to toggle between European and Ethiopic numerals for the page numbering.
More page layout and pagination
Some cultures define page areas and page progression direction very differently from those in the West (eg. kihon hanmen in Japanese). Is this an issue for you? Are widows and orphans relevant? In what order do pages progress, RTL or LTR? See available information or check for currently needed data.
Same as for English??
Other
Culture-specific features
Sometimes a script or language does things that are not common outside of it sphere of influence. This is a loose bag of additional items that weren't previously mentioned.
This section may also be relevant for observations related to locale formats (such as number, date, currency, format support).
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What else?
There are many other CSS modules which may need review for script-specific requirements, not to mention the SVG, HTML, Speech, MathML and other specifications.
What else is likely to cause problems for worldwide deployment of the Web, and what requirements need to be addressed to make the Web function well locally?
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If you have comments about this page, send them to ishida@w3.org.
Content last changed 2017-08-29 12:27 GMT
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