Meeting minutes
<Ralph> previous: 14 May
Action: Ralph figure out the calendaring issue that's annoying the EPUB WG
<Ralph> Tzviya: and ARIA
<Ralph> George: and Locators
EPUBCheck priorities
Avneesh: Starting phase 3 to
create a prototype based on HTML validator
… the schemas in EPUBCheck are Now being synchronized manually with
HTML validator
… This prototype will explore migrating EPUBCheck to the HTML
Validator
… If we move to HTML this will be really valuable and it will reduce
cost of maintaining schema manually
… But there is another priority: Implementing EPUB 3.3
… EPUB 3.3 won't be implemented if it isn't in EPUBCheck. But
supporting EPUB 3.3 is not in EPUBCheck contract
… the cost of developing the prototype on HTML validator is
approximately the same as to support EPUB 3.3
… Main decision: do we want to swap priorities?
Ivan: Does the HTML validator properly check XHTML?
Avneesh: This is part of what we want to determine in the prototype
Ivan: If we decide not to go to HTML 5, my priority is 3.3 unambiguously.
<dauwhe_> +3.3
Tzviya: To be clear, the switch to 3.3 can be done without a cost change but we will still need to tweak the contract with Daisy.
Dave: Switching to the HTML Validator is "nice to have"; supporting 3.3 is a must.
<wendyreid> Proposed: Shift focus of EPUBCheck to 3.3
<ivan> +1
<Bill_Kasdorf> +1
<wendyreid> +1
<liisamk> +1
<tzviya> +1
<dauwhe_> +3.3
<Ralph> +1
Tzviya: We don't need to
bring this to the wider group; we will just work with Richard and
Daisy.
… We may need other people from the EPUB 3 WG
Avneesh: We will be wrapping
up the current phase in two months.
… We will be looking for community feedback at that
point
… After two months we will allow another two months
for community feedback.
Dave: What's the money situation?
Tzviya: We have almost
enough money to finish out this contract, about $6,000.
… We will have to do some fundraising for the $13,000
for the next phase.
… Luc will no longer be able to do this; exploring a
replacement for Luc.
… I hope the excitement of 3.3 will make the
fundraising relatively easy.
George: If the prototype works for both HTML and XHTML, will that reduce the cost of moving EPUBCheck to 3.3?
Avneesh:
EPUB 3.2 also points to latest version of HTML; we just do it manually
at this point.
… In the short term migration to HTML validator won't reduce our cost;
in the long term it will make it easier to maintain EPUBCheck.
… So, it would not have significant effect on adding support for EPUB
3.3.
Resolution: Shift focus of EPUBCheck to 3.3
liisamk: Timing questions.
We have focused on making catalogs accessible by 2025. This is a big
project.
… Should we recommend waiting for 3.3 to do this?
… What implementation do we expect?
Wendy: I don't think 3.2 vs.
3.3 will matter that much for that project.
… The revisions in 3.3 won't make that much difference
for most EPUB; maybe more for FXL.
dauwhe: Nearly every
existing EPUB 3 file will continue to be a valid EPUB 3.3 file.
… There may be some edge cases that would be relevant,
but in general "EPUB 3 is a thing" and these point releases only
affect the margins.
… In my company moving from EPUB 3.1 to EPUB 3.2 was
easy.
George: New people should start with 3.3 but this should not be an issue for existing staff.
Ivan: Yes, the document is much clearer.
George: So as publishers
update their files and workflows, they really should refer to 3.3.
… If their 3.2 or older files pass EPUBCheck, there
really isn't a problem.
… But always use 3.3 from now on.
<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to mention A11y spec
Tzviya: We have made
significant improvements in a11y; plus we have the EPUB Accessibility
spec.
… The EPUB Accessibility spec is a significant spec to
pay attention to in this work too.
Christina: We are focusing
on EPUB 3 in general but not getting too wrapped around the axle on
the dot versions.
… The EU wants conformance with EPUB 3 but not
necessarily every new or old version.
Avneesh: You have been developing documents that show how we address the EUAA requirements.
Cristina: Yes, the document
has been developed in the context of W3C based on existing open a11y
standards.
… Document is available on the LIA website.
Ralph: If we were to say wait, we give a confusing message about the compatibility issue. Just focus on EPUB 3.
Cristina: It will be very complicated for publishers to address the backlist. The more we can stress compatibility between versions the better.
George: I think the page
navigation feature in EPUB 3 is a requirement of the EU. That wouild
mean EPUB 2 would not be acceptable in the EU.
… Upgrading the backlist to EPUB 3 is advisable.
<avneeshsingh> EU requriements mentions navigation, not specifically page navigation
Tzviya: The legislation itself is very vague; doesn't get into detail like that.
George: I still think our guidance should still be to update to EPUB 3.
wendyreid: Page level navigation--if the content has pagebreak locators in it--is WCAG A.
<avneeshsingh> it is first stage in WCAG 2.2, we will try to push for more page requirements in laternew version of WCAG
Updating IDPF specs on idpf.org with in-place status
Tzviya: Okay, there's still a lot to work out on the compliance issue.
<wendyreid> https://
Ralph: Topic: idpf.org domain
Ralph: We took a static
snapshot when the W3C took over and that's now what we serve up.
… The web has lots of links to those specs, including
a set of specs that have not been worked on for a long time and may
not be worked on again.
… What should we do with those specs?
… The proposal from Ivan, Matt, and I is to edit the
static snapshot to add a message that "this document is obsolete."
… Our proposal is to do just that for all of those 13
orphan specs.
George: All of the specs that have been updated by W3C point to the new specs.
Tzviya: yes.
George: The specs would still be there if somebody wanted to work on it in the future, correct?
Ralph: Yes.
Dave: We need people to understand the status of these specs. E.g. we don't want folks to think you have to do what the indexing spec says in your EPUBs.
Ivan: I don't think we've
put any such header in, e.g., EPUB 3.1. That one should have a header
that points to 3.2 or 3.3.
… Those should be added to the list as well.
<dauwhe_> http://
<dauwhe_> http://
Tzviya: There are many W3C documents that carry such warnings.
Ralph: Yes, similar status messages should be added to 3.1 and other similar documents.
<tzviya> +1 to dauwhe_
dauwhe: We really owe it to the community to do this.
Updating the Publishing@W3C landing page
Ivan: It is very outdated.
It's not clear to me who the target community is.
… The links on the left are very useful to the people
doing technical work.
<tzviya> https://
<Ralph> Publishing@W3C
Ivan: There are testimonials
dating back to IDPF becoming part of W3C that are obsolete.
… What should the message be? Who should we address?
What's the target audience for that page?
Tzviya: Does anybody go here? Do we need to even do this?
Ivan: The cheapest and
easiest thing to do is to use it as an index page.
… That's not how it was developed initially.
Liisa: This is valuable to people we'd like to have join the community.
<Ralph> Publishing in the "Web and Industry" navbar
Liisa: Having one page that is rah rah about this work is still a good thing, just needs to be updated.
Ralph: Publishing has a prominent spot on the W3C home page; we should use this in some way.
Mateus: Do we have any
analytics or other usage information? How high in search index results
is this page?
… My gut feeling is there are 3 communities: people
trying to find a spec; people interested in the current work; people
who might want to actually contribute, feature requests, etc.
… It would be good if we had some data about this.
Ivan: I doubt that we have useful analytics.
<dauwhe_> Yikes. Only top-10
for w3c google result for "EPUB" is https://
Ralph: We don't do Google Analytics but we might have some kinds of access counts.
Tzviya: Agree with Mateus.
… Currently it just looks like a wall of text and
isn't helpful.
… Simple intro and very short explanation of what the
groups do.
Bill: I like Mateus'
structure and what Tzviya just said
… I'd be happy to draft something as a starting point
for discussion
<liisamk> +1 to draft and edit via email
Ralph: you're hired!
… Go for it.
Around the Zoom Gallery
Tzviya: The deadline for the videos is July 15. Ralph and I will be developing guidelines.
George: I attended a session yesterday about EPUB that was just terrible. They were businesses threatened by EPUB.
Mateus: Next CG meeting in July will shift to a milestone orientation: specific timelines for TF goals to share concrete outcomes.
<Ralph> Mateus++
<Ralph> Xheng++
Mateus: We hope this will
help with transparency and draw in more interest.
… Looking forward to joint meeting with WG to look at
how EPUB 4 would fit into the CG's role as incubator.