[whatwg] Spellchecking mark III

[Ian Hickson]

On Thu, 12 Feb 2009, Kristof Zelechovski wrote:
>
> Regarding http://html5.org/tools/web-apps-tracker?from=2800&to=2801, my 
> requests:
> 
> 1. Change the literals "true"/"false" to "on"/"off", leaving the DOM values
> Boolean.

There are three of these attributes so far:

  autocomplete = on/off
  contenteditable = true/false
  draggable = true/false

I used true/false for spellcheck since it had slightly more other 
attributes doing the same thing.

Also, it's been implemented twice now, so using other keywords is a 
problem.


> 2. Check the spelling of the passage ("asits"!) :0)

Fixed.


> 3. Say that the default behavior for BODY is "on" and the default behavior
> for INPUT[type=text] is "off".

The default behavior is user-agent-dependent. This is intentional since 
different users may have different needs.


> 4. (I understand that it is implicit that this "SHOULD indicate" does 
> not make tiny clients that do not have the resources non-compliant?)

Correct.


> Stretching it a bit, a user's language always matches the site's, 
> otherwise the user would not be able to submit to the site anything that 
> makes sense, except when the site is a gateway for submissions to an 
> uninvolved third party, in which case said submissions should be tagged 
> with the language of submission anyway (IMHO).

On Thu, 12 Feb 2009, Bil Corry wrote:
>
> Let me give you an example where this isn't true.  I'm in the United 
> States and I do contract work for a company in Germany.  At the German 
> company, they have an internal bug tracker for their intranet 
> applications.  Usually the bug descriptions are written in German, 
> except mine, which are in English.  So they will submit bugs in both 
> German and in English, depending on who is taking care of the issue.
> 
> How do you envision the UA will determine which language the user is 
> writing in?  And what happens when the user submits both German AND 
> English, for two audiences?

On Thu, 12 Feb 2009, Kristof Zelechovski wrote:
>
> The server has two ways of knowing the user's preferred language: the 
> user's preferences and the browser settings, in that order.
>
> Submitting in two languages usually needs two controls, one for English 
> and one for German, with appropriate markup.  The server must be 
> prepared to handle this use case.

On Thu, 12 Feb 2009, Aryeh Gregor wrote:
> 
> Both of which are often wrong.  Users may be multilingual, and multiple 
> users may use the same computer.  On the forum I administer, I post 
> almost exclusively in English.  However, sometimes I find occasion to 
> write a post partly or wholly in Hebrew.  How is the site supposed to 
> know when I'll decide to do that before I even start typing the post?  
> How can the site ever be sure what language the user will type until he 
> actually starts typing?
> 
> The server might be able to make an educated guess as to what language 
> will be entered, but so can the browser.  And the browser is in a *much* 
> better position to check that guess, because it has access in real time 
> to the actual text the user is typing, plus the user interface language, 
> and -- of course -- any lang= or xml:lang= attributes specified in the 
> HTML.  Ergo, the logic should be left up to the browser.

On Thu, 12 Feb 2009, Kristof Zelechovski wrote:
>
> The language attribute can be changed at run time if needed.  It 
> requires an additional event that can be called "langmismatch".  Of 
> course, a more traditional selector is also a solution.  If the site is 
> primary English, with Hebrew fragments here and there, it is not much 
> harm that the fragments are considered spelling errors (although, in the 
> case of English/Hebrew bilingualism, it is unlikely because the 
> character set is different). In short, the user agent is allowed to use 
> whatever AI it is equipped with.
> 
> Markup for German AND English submissions at the same time, as per your 
> request:
>
> <LABEL LANG="de" >Inhalt: <TEXTAREA NAME=INHALT ></TEXTAREA ></LABEL >
> <LABEL LANG="de" >Contents: <TEXTAREA NAME=CONTENTS ></TEXTAREA ></LABEL >

On Thu, 12 Feb 2009, Bil Corry wrote:
> 
> In my case, we have a single field, "bug description" that may contain 
> both English and German.  And in some cases, even a pure German bug 
> report may reference the English form fields, such as:
> 
> 	Legen Sie "City" vor "Postal Code"
> 
> In that case, there is no way for a UA or Server to auto-determine the 
> language, even if you're aware the user speaks both German and English.
> 
> My suggestion is to leave the lang attribute out of the spec, and let 
> the UA handle it as it wants.

On Thu, 12 Feb 2009, KÅ~YiÅ¡tof Želechovski wrote:
>
> Having interjected words marked as spelling errors is not a failure.  
> The same phenomenon occurs with proper names and you cannot help that. 
> The UI you described is inconsistent and it should be fixed.  The 
> control for German should be labeled "Fehlerbeſchreibung" or whatever.

On Thu, 12 Feb 2009, Kristof Zelechovski wrote:
>
> I do not know much about UI standards but the rule that the answer 
> should be formulated in the language of the question is rather 
> straightforward.  It is just common sense.  Exceptions are questions 
> like "How is that in German?".

On Thu, 12 Feb 2009, Bil Corry wrote:
> 
> No one can control the language a user will choose to use in a textarea, 
> regardless of the label used to describe it.
> 
> Providing a localized textarea for every language might increase the 
> odds of the user using the language the server prefers, but there is no 
> guarantee.  And I'm unclear what problem that would ultimately solve.

On Thu, 12 Feb 2009, Kristof Zelechovski wrote:
>
> The majority of users will answer the question in the language of the 
> question, this is the normal reaction.  Of course there is no guarantee 
> but the odds of getting the expected result are high.  Assuming that the 
> user's input will actually be read by somebody, providing proper markup 
> will help the readers to get something they are able to read.

Based on the above feedback, I have left the spec as-is, allowing both 
behaviors ("User agents may use the language of the element to determine 
what spelling and grammar rules to use, or may use the user's preferred 
language settings").

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'