[whatwg] rp is a styling tag and has no semantic function

Nikita Popov privat at ni-po.com
Fri Oct 30 03:10:59 PDT 2009


Futomi Hatano schrieb:
> If ATs(e.g. screen reader)  know the rp element, it can remove the content of the rp element.
> So, we can get only true annotations from ATs, without parentheses.
> I don't want hear parentheses from a screen reader.
>
> I hope that all browsers (including ATs) support the ruby element.
> If so, I think the rp element is not necessary.
>
> Thank you.
>
> --
> Futomi Hatano
> www.html5.jp
>   
> I think this element is necessary in the HTML5 spec.
Talking about screen-readers: How should a screen-reader actually handle
ruby annotations? In this case
<ruby>
漢 <rt> かん </rt>
字 <rt> じ  </rt>
</ruby>
it would be quite strange if a screen-reader read the annotations,
because they have the same content as the ruby base text. (I hope this
is correct. I don't know the Japanese language, but I understood it as
漢 beeing same as かん only in a different "way" of writing.) So the
reader must not read the annotation.
In an example i got from an older W3C spec, it's different:

<ruby>
  <rbc>
    <rb>10</rb>
    <rb>31</rb>
    <rb>2002</rb>
  </rbc>
  <rtc>
    <rt>Month</rt>
    <rt>Day</rt>
    <rt>Year</rt>
  </rtc>
  <rtc>
    <rt rbspan="3">Expiration Date</rt>
  </rtc>
</ruby>

As this markup isn't used anymore with HTML5, here's how it would be
(dropping the "expiration date"):
<ruby>
10 <rt>Month</rt>
31 <rt>Day</rt>
2002 <rt>Year</rt>
</ruby>
This one now should be read out by the screen-reader. Otherwise the
meaning of the numbers may be not as clear.

(Or is the date-example out-of-date and ruby shouldn't be used there?)



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