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Subject: [office] My confusion regarding properties and writing modes
I wanted to cite the issues that came to my mind regarding how I came to the conclusion that the file format was weighted to Western European left-to-right writing modes. I'm reading the "OpenOffice.org XML File Format 1.0 Technical Reference Manual Version 2 December 2002". I only made it a short way into the document before I found in "2.3.1 Page Master" pages 54-55 in the sections "Border", "Border Line Width" and "Padding" that the absolute properties of top, bottom, left and right are used, and not the writing mode dependent properties before, after, start and end. Note that page margins are always top, bottom, left and right in XSL-FO because they are from the physical orientation and not the writing mode. I was uncomfortable to hear in the conference call that the intention of supporting right-to-left and other writing modes in the context of Open Office is to document how the semantics of properties change in certain cases. I think this approach is wrong and fraught with problems. The "Border" and "Padding" properties explicitly use the XSL-FO vocabulary as indicated by the use of the namespace. An "fo:padding-left" specification will always be on the left side of the box model because it is absolute. Choosing, rather, the "fo:padding-start" property will instead be based on the writing mode. What would be on the left side for left-to-right Western European writing will properly be on the right side for right-to-left Arabic/Hebrew writing when using "fo:padding-start". I'm not sure why custom border line width properties are used instead of XSL-FO properties, but for the same reasons any new properties in the style namespace or namespaces for other properties should consider writing-mode-independent property names and semantics instead of absolute ones. Consider that I might write a stylesheet for Western European text ... when I diligently use before, after, start and end semantics for the formatting properties, my stylesheet can be used *without change* for other writing modes and have those semantics properly reflected. Please let me know if you have any questions. I hope this helps. ....................... Ken -- Upcoming hands-on in-depth XSLT/XPath and/or XSL-FO: - North America: Feb 3 - Feb 7,2003 G. Ken Holman mailto:gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com Crane Softwrights Ltd. http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/o/ Box 266, Kars, Ontario CANADA K0A-2E0 +1(613)489-0999 (F:-0995) ISBN 0-13-065196-6 Definitive XSLT and XPath ISBN 0-13-140374-5 Definitive XSL-FO ISBN 1-894049-08-X Practical Transformation Using XSLT and XPath ISBN 1-894049-10-1 Practical Formatting Using XSL-FO Male Breast Cancer Awareness http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/o/bc
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