Ruby

[Neal]

I'm beginning some experiments with Ruby in XHTML 1.1. I'm finding very
odd results which surprise me.

I'm using a PHP snippet which serves application/xml+xhtml and XHTML 1.1
to those browsers which accept it, and text/html XHTML 1.0 otherwise. I
included a simple Ruby setup, first without using the <rp> elements, then
with. My results?

O7.23 does not render simple Ruby with the overtext as described in the
spec, but does not display rt text at all - unless using rp, when the rp
and rt content is rendered.

M1.6, NN4.01 and Lynx ignore Ruby markup, and render the contents. Lynx is
no surprise, but Mozilla?

IE6, IE5.5, even IE5.01, observes and renders simple Ruby, and does not
display rp content, preferring the overtext rendering as in the spec in
both cases. Oddly, they are served XHTML1.0 in text/html, yet they are the
only ones which render the Ruby as I anticipated. (Mind you, my 5.5 and
5.01 are standalones, and I cannot verify this is the behavior the full
install of these browser versions would exhibit.)

I'm assuming Microsoft invented Ruby based on my experiment. Hmm?

As I have no intention of reinventing the wheel, anyone know of more
information on what UAs support ruby and to what extent, and any other
interesting info?

[Shawn K. Quinn]

Re: Ruby

Neal wrote:
[color=blue]
> As I have no intention of reinventing the wheel, anyone know of more
> information on what UAs support ruby and to what extent, and any other
> interesting info?[/color]

I can try with Konqueror if I have a URL to test with.

--
Shawn K. Quinn

[Neal]

Re: Ruby

On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 01:54:39 -0500, Shawn K. Quinn
<skquinn@xeviou s.kicks-ass.net> wrote:
[color=blue]
> Neal wrote:
>[color=green]
>> As I have no intention of reinventing the wheel, anyone know of more
>> information on what UAs support ruby and to what extent, and any other
>> interesting info?[/color]
>
> I can try with Konqueror if I have a URL to test with.
>[/color]

http://www.opro.org/phpnew/rubytest.php

[Neal]

Re: Ruby

On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 00:52:27 -0400, Neal <neal413@yahoo. com> wrote:
[color=blue]
> O7.23 does not render simple Ruby with the overtext as described in the
> spec, but does not display rt text at all - unless using rp, when the rp
> and rt content is rendered.[/color]

Odd- the current test shows the rp-less bit displaying the rt. Originally
it was within an anchor, perhaps that made a difference. I assume the
original test was faulted.

[Shawn K. Quinn]

Re: Ruby

Neal wrote:
[color=blue]
> On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 01:54:39 -0500, Shawn K. Quinn
> <skquinn@xeviou s.kicks-ass.net> wrote:[color=green]
>> Neal wrote:[color=darkred]
>>> As I have no intention of reinventing the wheel, anyone know of more
>>> information on what UAs support ruby and to what extent, and any other
>>> interesting info?[/color]
>>
>> I can try with Konqueror if I have a URL to test with.[/color]
>
> http://www.opro.org/phpnew/rubytest.php[/color]

Konqueror appears to ignore ruby markup, as I suspected it might.

--
Shawn K. Quinn

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Re: Ruby

Neal <neal413@yahoo. com> wrote:
[color=blue]
> O7.23 does not render simple Ruby with the overtext as described in
> the spec, but does not display rt text at all - unless using rp, when
> the rp and rt content is rendered.[/color]

Sounds like a bug.
[color=blue]
> M1.6, NN4.01 and Lynx ignore Ruby markup, and render the contents.
> Lynx is no surprise, but Mozilla?[/color]

Well, at least they present the intended fallback. Regarding Mozilla,
I think its authors just didn't regard Ruby as important enough. After
all, to people who don't know Eastern Asian writing systems, Ruby
is a mystery. I must admit that I still understand fairly little of Ruby,
despite writing a few pages about it for a book - more than I've ever
_read_ in books.
[color=blue]
> IE6, IE5.5, even IE5.01, observes and renders simple Ruby,[/color]

Yes, probably in the intended way, which means that if you use it for
texts written (say) in Latin letters, the ruby annotations are virtually
unreadably small. Setting
rt { font-size: 70%; font-family: Verdana; }
makes it probably readable. Yes, I _do_ think this is an exceptional
situation where Verdana could make sense.
[color=blue]
> Oddly, they are served XHTML1.0 in text/html, yet
> they are the only ones which render the Ruby as I anticipated.[/color]

IE, like other browsers, don't actually care about document types or
DTDs, they just look at magic _names_ and identifiers for them and make
wild guesses. They don't, for example, switch off all proprietary ideas
of markup, like <blink> and <marquee>, just because a document declares a
document type definition does not contain them. So could we expect them
to switch off support to markup that _has_ been defined by the W3C,
though not in the version declared, if such support has been built into
the browser?

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html

[Andy Dingley]

Re: Ruby

Neal <neal413@yahoo. com> wrote in message news:<opr9xg5pg o6v6656@news.in dividual.net>.. .[color=blue]
> I'm beginning some experiments with Ruby in XHTML 1.1. I'm finding very
> odd results which surprise me.[/color]

Simple or complex Ruby ? If you do the full-blown version (with the
<rtc>'s and the brackets embedded in the document) then it ought to be
(and IMHE, is) very robust for legacy support. It's inherent in the
design of Ruby that totally Ruby-unaware UA's have some sensible,
although typographically boring, behaviour.

The only aspect I've had trouble with was the direction. Small ruby
over main text works fine. Anything else; ruby beneath, rubies above
and below, vertical character direction, now that really does seem to
fall apart.

That said though, I've used little Ruby and rarely been too fussy
about its accuracy. If it does anything vaguely "right", then that has
been enough for my needs.

[color=blue]
> I'm assuming Microsoft invented Ruby based on my experiment. Hmm?[/color]

My understanding (based on an almost total absence of knowledge) is
that Ruby existed in the document markup world for some time
beforehand, then made its way onto the web via Keio university and a
W3C working group. M$oft were on-board early on, but didn't really
invent or drive the process.


BTW - I assume we're talking about Ruby (the markup), not Ruby (the
programming language)

http://www.w3.org/TR/ruby/

[Martin Honnen]

Re: Ruby



Neal wrote:
[color=blue]
> I'm beginning some experiments with Ruby in XHTML 1.1. I'm finding very
> odd results which surprise me.
>
> I'm using a PHP snippet which serves application/xml+xhtml and XHTML 1.1
> to those browsers which accept it, and text/html XHTML 1.0 otherwise. I
> included a simple Ruby setup, first without using the <rp> elements,
> then with. My results?
>
> O7.23 does not render simple Ruby with the overtext as described in the
> spec, but does not display rt text at all - unless using rp, when the rp
> and rt content is rendered.[/color]

According to http://www.opera.com/docs/specs/html/ Opera has no support
for Ruby.
[color=blue]
> M1.6, NN4.01 and Lynx ignore Ruby markup, and render the contents. Lynx
> is no surprise, but Mozilla?[/color]

Mozilla too has no support for Ruby:

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33339

[color=blue]
> IE6, IE5.5, even IE5.01, observes and renders simple Ruby, and does not
> display rp content, preferring the overtext rendering as in the spec in
> both cases. Oddly, they are served XHTML1.0 in text/html, yet they are
> the only ones which render the Ruby as I anticipated. (Mind you, my 5.5
> and 5.01 are standalones, and I cannot verify this is the behavior the
> full install of these browser versions would exhibit.)[/color]

MSIE has some support for <ruby> and <rt>

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/author/dhtml/reference/objects/ruby.asp

which dates back from some draft before the W3C published the W3C
recommendation on Ruby as far as I know.

--

Martin Honnen

http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/

[Harlan Messinger]

Re: Ruby


"Neal" <neal413@yahoo. com> wrote in message
news:opr9xg5pgo 6v6656@news.ind ividual.net...[color=blue]
>
> I'm assuming Microsoft invented Ruby based on my experiment. Hmm?[/color]

You can't mean that literally, can you? For example, bopomofo, small symbols
placed to the right of characters to indicate their pronunciation, has been
in use in Taiwan since it was designed in 1913, which I presume even
predates Bill Gates' father.
[color=blue]
>
> As I have no intention of reinventing the wheel, anyone know of more
> information on what UAs support ruby and to what extent, and any other
> interesting info?[/color]

[Neal]

Re: Ruby

On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 09:22:54 -0400, Harlan Messinger
<h.messinger@co mcast.net> wrote:
[color=blue]
>
> "Neal" <neal413@yahoo. com> wrote in message
> news:opr9xg5pgo 6v6656@news.ind ividual.net...[color=green]
>>
>> I'm assuming Microsoft invented Ruby based on my experiment. Hmm?[/color]
>
> You can't mean that literally, can you? For example, bopomofo, small
> symbols
> placed to the right of characters to indicate their pronunciation, has
> been
> in use in Taiwan since it was designed in 1913, which I presume even
> predates Bill Gates' father.[/color]

Of course. But I was referring to the Ruby markup.

[Neal]

Re: Ruby

On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 00:52:27 -0400, Neal <neal413@yahoo. com> wrote:
[color=blue]
> As I have no intention of reinventing the wheel, anyone know of more
> information on what UAs support ruby and to what extent, and any other
> interesting info?[/color]

This is rather interesting, I think. I was supposing Ruby would be pretty
useful, but it would seem not yet. Though the more I think about it,
there's not a lot of places it would truly be usable on the www. As Jukka
said, part of the problem is the small text size in the no-CSS version. If
rendered as intended, no one can read the little letters until we're at
say font-size: 180%...

Thanks for all the responses so far.