EPUB 3 Working Group Telco — Minutes

Date: 2023-01-05

See also the Agenda and the IRC Log

Attendees

Present: Dave Cramer, Matthew Chan, David Hall, Wendy Reid, Toshiaki Koike, Masakazu Kitahara, Shinya Takami (高見真也), Matt Garrish, Brady Duga

Regrets:

Guests:

Chair:

Scribe(s): Matthew Chan

Content:

1. Discuss Under-implemented Features.

Dave Cramer: https://w3c.github.io/epub-tests/results.

Dave Cramer: we are getting close to the end. Idea is that we start process of moving to PR soon.
… given testing is more or less finished, we have a sense of where we are lacking 2 independent implementations.
… such features are under-implemented.

Wendy Reid: the features in question are package linked record (order and priority), i18n directionality in creator field, css pub text-align last, putting images into nav.

: Zakim sees mgarrish on the speaker queue.

Wendy Reid: also fixed layout orientation duplication as well, but this is more something to be flagged in epubcheck.
… i don’t think we will remove from spec, some have a single implementation.
… esp. dir on creator field, that will probably get supported over time.

Matt Garrish: can we get rid of the linked record stuff?.
… we thought there might be json records etc. so we wanted to make rules on prioritization of metadata.
… happy to say that you can put linked records in if you want, but not officially part of spec.

Wendy Reid: we could take either approach. Either take it out, or say that we don’t have evidence that this is an implemented feature.
… the package linked record ones in particular have no evidence of implementation.

Matt Garrish: some reports of failing the linked records test might actually be N/As. Not sure i’ve ever seen this feature implemented..
… there’s a case for keeping the directionality stuff, as you said.

Dave Cramer: did we get testing from VitalSource on linked records, etc.?.

: Zakim sees no one on the speaker queue.

Wendy Reid: we did get testing from them, but they reported as N/A for both of those linked record ones.

Dave Cramer: then my instinct is to get rid of them, the use-cases didn’t pan out.

: Zakim sees duga on the speaker queue.

Wendy Reid: we have a note re. prefix css properties being out of sync of their proper css equivalents, but i’m in favor of strengthening this to tell people to stop using the prefixes.

: Zakim sees no one on the speaker queue.

Brady Duga: looking at the test reports, it looks like the MO tests still have a bunch of single implementations?.

Wendy Reid: yes, we are hoping for Colibrio to get their tests results in. They seem to be the most accurate.

Dave Cramer: is the problem with these tests that most RS have only supported MO for fxl?.

Wendy Reid: yes.

Brady Duga: are we hoping that the Colibrio results will provide the required implementations?.

Wendy Reid: these tests are SHOULDs with MUSTs within. Supporting MO at all is optional.

Brady Duga: so we don’t think this will cause an issue?.

Wendy Reid: no. But I’m still hoping we can get Colibrio’s results.

Brady Duga: it would be nice if we just re-did the tests to make them FXL, because then we’d have tons of passes.

Dave Cramer: it seems like it might be less work to just explain this to the Director.

Wendy Reid: for the sake of accuracy it would be nice to have more results for these MO tests.
… the other one we haven’t talked about yet is images in the NAV.
… not sure if this is actually being done, if we can take out this feature.

Dave Cramer: i’m thinking about the common tactic of using a tiny image if your font doesn’t have a special character….

: Zakim sees shiestyle on the speaker queue.

: Zakim sees no one on the speaker queue.

Shinya Takami (高見真也): in JP we use gaiji (small images for representative letters) in Japan but many reading systems cannot treat images in NAV so we will not use images in NAV..

<li>
    <a href="senanque.xhtml">.
        <img src="imgs/senanque.jpg" alt="Description of the Abbey of Sénanque" 
             title="Image of the Abbey" />
    </a>
</li>

Wendy Reid: if you don’t render the image in TOC, then you’re supposed to present the alt-text.

Matt Garrish: if you can’t support the image and you don’t show the alt-text it’s a usability issue.

Wendy Reid: apple books shows nothing at all, and Thorium shows the file path rather than the image or the alt-text.

Brady Duga: this seems like it would be easy to implement. Could some RS just quickly add this feature?.
… just check if its an image, and if so then grab alt-text and insert it.

Wendy Reid: but how often do you even see non-text in NAV?.

Dave Cramer: so do we have to write something into epubcheck to forbid images in NAV?.

Wendy Reid: https://w3c.github.io/epub-specs/epub33/rs/#confreq-nav-alt-text.

Wendy Reid: one solution would be to replace this MUST assertion with a SHOULD. Let RS decide whether to support it.

Shinya Takami (高見真也): +1.

Wendy Reid: we’d have to make these changes to the spec, so that when go to PR it is clear what decision were made.

Wendy Reid: for the package linked record (order and priority) are we in agreement that we will remove because it is not used?.

Dave Cramer: and we have evidence that this feature is not being supported, so we can now kill it.

Proposed resolution: Remove the linked records order and priority requirements from the specification. (Wendy Reid)

Dave Cramer: +1.

Matt Garrish: +1.

Brady Duga: +1.

Wendy Reid: +1.

Matthew Chan: +1.

Toshiaki Koike: +1.

David Hall: +1.

Shinya Takami (高見真也): +1.

Masakazu Kitahara: +1.

Resolution #1: Remove the linked records order and priority requirements from the specification.

Wendy Reid: next, i18n dir attribute on package metadata (creator, title). We think this is underimplemented because we just introduced it. We want to keep it, maybe with a note explaining that we think it will be supported.

Dave Cramer: and there are good i18n reasons for it.
… the ultimately the goal is show that these features are implementable, and there is precedent for that.

Proposed resolution: Keep the dir attribute requirements for the package metadata, they are important to i18n, add note explaining it is a new feature. (Wendy Reid)

Matthew Chan: +1.

Shinya Takami (高見真也): +1.

Wendy Reid: +1.

David Hall: +1.

Dave Cramer: +1.

Toshiaki Koike: +1.

Brady Duga: +1.

Matt Garrish: +1.

Masakazu Kitahara: +1.

Resolution #2: Keep the dir attribute requirements for the package metadata, they are important to i18n, add note explaining it is a new feature.

Wendy Reid: next, css epub text-align last. We already have a note discouraging these prefix properties.

Dave Cramer: CSS error handling is really well defined, and we inherit a lot of that. We don’t really have to do anything..
… last, processing of images in NAV document. We said we would move this from MUST to SHOULD.

Proposed resolution: Lower the requirement for processing non-text elements in the nav doc from a MUST to a SHOULD. (Wendy Reid)

Dave Cramer: +1.

Shinya Takami (高見真也): +1.

David Hall: +1.

Brady Duga: +1.

Wendy Reid: +1.

Matthew Chan: +1.

Masakazu Kitahara: +1.

Toshiaki Koike: +1.

Matt Garrish: +1.

Resolution #3: Lower the requirement for processing non-text elements in the nav doc from a MUST to a SHOULD.

Matt Garrish: should we add any warning to the authoring document about such elements not being supported since we’re dropping he requirement?.

Wendy Reid: yeah, a note. Maybe link to the test results or something.
… fxl orientation duplication test is last, but that’s more a test of epubcheck.

Matt Garrish: we’re waiting on Romain to do the final release, we’re pretty much good to go on that.

2. charter extension, WG continuation.

Wendy Reid: we’ve also requested a Charter extension. If all goes well, we’ll got to PR in 2 weeks (once all final edits are one). But once that’s done it would be past the end of Feb, which is when our Charter ends.
… we are asking for 6 mth extension, which is probably more than we need.
… but we also have the question of epub3 maintenance WG. Writing the Charter for that will also take some time.

: Zakim sees no one on the speaker queue.

Wendy Reid: the maintenance WG is less work than this one, but the purpose is to keep track of errata, address any issues that may op-up:0020:37:00 <MattChan> dauwhe: and that won’t require regular meetings or anything? Just keeping an eye on Github and addressing them there.
… for the Audiobooks maintenance WG, we had maybe 3 calls in total to hash out wording and approve PRs.

Dave Cramer: do we have to make decisions on whether epub 3.3 will be a living standard when we apply for PR?.

Wendy Reid: i think every standard is a living standard unless you opt-out.
… e.g. for audiobooks the errata we added would have involved going through the whole spec process again.
… the new process organizes changes in 4 levels of severity. Errata fall within the lower two levels..
… the level 3 and 4 take you back to the CR stage and you go through the process from there.

Matt Garrish: but for level 3 and 4, reviewers can review the whole spec, not just the things you are changing.

Wendy Reid: one of the other reasons we extended the charter is that there is a non-zero chance we could have a formal objection logged against us, and we’d have to do deal with that as well within our current Charter.
… since I’ve already written a maintenance WG charter for audiobooks we can re-use some of that language.

3. ARIA issues.

Matt Garrish: https://w3c.github.io/epub-specs/epub33/epub-aria-authoring/.

Wendy Reid: last is publication for guide for transitioning from epub:type to ARIA roles.

Matt Garrish: this is a guide we made back in the IDPF days for teaching people how to use roles properly.
… comes up every so often whether we should publish this.
… we want to republish this as part of the W3C so we’re not referring back to IDPF.
… the information is basically the same, some minor corrections. We could then also reference this from the structural vocab.

Wendy Reid: is this DPUB ARIA 1.1?.

Matt Garrish: it’s not specific. It talks about 1.0 but its about how to use roles in general.

Wendy Reid: do we have to give it a short name when we say we’re publishing it?.

Matt Garrish: epub-aria-authoring-11.

Proposed resolution: Publish the EPUB ARIA Authoring Guide as a working group note, with the short name “epub-aria-authoring-11”. (Wendy Reid)

Shinya Takami (高見真也): +1.

Wendy Reid: +1.

David Hall: +1.

Dave Cramer: +11.

Matt Garrish: +1.

Toshiaki Koike: +1.

Matthew Chan: +1.

Masakazu Kitahara: +1.

Resolution #4: Publish the EPUB ARIA Authoring Guide as a working group note, with the short name “epub-aria-authoring-11”.

Matt Garrish: I’ll tell Ivan.

4. AOB?.

Dave Cramer: the meeting next Fri is when we would vote for PR.

Wendy Reid: not next Fri. That one is cancelled. On the 19th we will vote for both PR and ISO.

Brady Duga: is there a quorum for that meeting?.

Dave Cramer: we will vote at the meeting, but leave email open for anyone who can’t be there.

lose: Thu Jan 05 20:51:20 202:00.

5. Resolutions