Re: Gutenberg (Quotation Marks: A Final "Mea Culpa")

>>Unfortunately, neither of the two major
>>browsers supports these CSS2 properties. In fact, no commercial browser
>>supports this feature.

I think this raises an important point vis-a-vis Project Gutenberg.

Althoug it is nice to have stuff that displays in current user agents, our
view should be much longer term. If we stick to standards, then there is a
strong likely hood that what we do today will be useful in 100, 200, 300
years form now! if we pander to the flawed de facto hacks of today future
implementors and archivists will wonder what the hell we are talking about!

Frank

----- Original Message -----
From: R. Ivan Linderman <navir(at)worldnet.att.net>
To: HWG Project Gutenberg <hwg-gutenberg(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2000 10:14 PM
Subject: HWG: Gutenberg (Quotation Marks: A Final "Mea Culpa")


> I'm sorry my earlier email wasn't clearer. I thought I had answered many
of
> comments in the latest emails in greater detail at
> http://www.htmlchef.com/quotations.htm, but can summarize them as follows:
>
> 1. Nothing is with &quot; for both right and left quotes per se, except
the
> meaning can be ambiguous, and internationalization problematic.
>
> The ambiguous meaning part comes from the fact that, at least in English,
> &quot; (") has meanings other than quoting; e.g., it also stands for
inches,
> seconds, etc. Especially in ASCII texts, " are used to mark everything
from
> quotations to special terms to definitions, make citations and add
emphasis.
>
> The problematic part is when one wants to convert an English document to
> French for example, all quotation marks at the beginning (&quot;) of
quotes
> must be replaced by left guillemets (&laquo;) and the SAME entity at the
end
> (&quot;) must be replaced by right guillemets (&raquo;), while those
> instances of &quot; that are not delimiting quotations must be ignored.
One
> can't simply do a find-and-replace. Additionally, because quotation marks
> are used for reasons other than quotations (e.g., to identify terms,
> so-called words, etc.), it becomes difficult to locate every instance of a
> &quote; entity that needs to be changed.
>
> 2. The W3C specification recommends "Visual user agents [browsers] must
> ensure that the content of the Q element is rendered with delimiting
> quotation marks. Authors should not put quotation marks at the beginning
and
> end of the content of a Q element." Unfortunately, of the two major
> browsers, only Microsoft's Internet Explorer supports the Q element, and
it
> does not render its contents with delimiting quotation marks.
>
> As Frank noted, CSS2 (Cascading Style Sheets, Level 2) also provides two
> methods to add beginning and ending quotation marks: the :before and
:after
> pseudo-elements used in conjunction with the content property, or
> preferably, the quotes property. Unfortunately, neither of the two major
> browsers supports these CSS2 properties. In fact, no commercial browser
> supports this feature.
> If you rely on these unsupported specifications, your quotes will not be
> rendered with quotation marks. She said, To be great, she paused, you must
> try hard is not the same as "She said, 'To be great,' she paused, 'you
must
> try hard'".
>
> Some day, when Visual User Agents render Q tags with quotation marks, I
can
> go through all my documents and safely remove &rdquo; and &ldquo; in 10
> seconds without also removing all those USEFUL instances of &quot; that
I've
> used to, for example, show how to quote attributes in HTML markup!
>
> 3. Yes: "... &rdquo; and &ldquo; ARE "Smart Quotes"; at least as rendered
by
> Internet Explorer. I indicated this at
> http://www.htmlchef.com/quotations.htm (in the Note under "What Kind of
> Quotes").
>
> Well, this HAS been fun, but I'm off to look at the use of italics now.
>
> Ivan
>

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