Subject: [xml2rfc-dev] Questions about the artwork element

From: Jim Schaad <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2018 10:10:09 -0800

Paul,

I am going through the artwork element and trying to figure out how things
should be specified and how things are arranged.

There are a lot of ways of specifying where an SVG artwork is to be obtained
from, but that seems to be very logical.   However, I am having a problem
with trying to figure out how, where and when an alternative description is
supposed to appear.

If you read carefully and between the lines, then one would know to place
the alternative description in the <desc> element of the SVG if you use one
(section 2.5.2).   Except that this is not what the second paragraph of
section 2.5 says. That being said, there are two additional locations where
one can place the alternative description.  In the body of the <artwork>
element and in the alt attribute of the <artwork> element.  This means that
I am not sure what the order of using multiple items would be.

First guess,

1. If there is <desc> element in the SVG, use that otherwise do step 2.
2. If there is a src attribute, use the body if it is not empty otherwise
use the alt attribute if present
3. Use the alt attribute if present

As such it would appear that currently, the only time that the alt attribute
should normally be used only for an alternative for ASCII line art.

In all of these cases, it appears that the alternative description is
intended to be a single long text string that would be the intended format.
This means that one cannot use some of the features of formatting that might
be useful in presenting the alternative description in text.  These might be
multiple paragraphs, bullet points and so forth.  While one can do these
there is no concept of having any automatic line wrapping when this is done.

Questions:

1.  Are there situations where the alt attribute is really needed?
2.  Is the order of displaying alternative descriptions correct?  Or should
all be displayed if all exist?
3.  Is there a better way of doing formatting for the alternative
description?
4.  Not sure if this is for you or Nevil, but an SVG can have multiple
<desc> elements.  Is there a defined way that these should be combined
together to form the alternative text?  Is that a function of the XML2RFC
document or of the format that the artwork is presented in?

Jim

---

From: Jim Schaad <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2018 10:13:36 -0800

A follow up to these questions

RFC 7991 the grammar says:

   Alternatively, the "src" attribute allows referencing an external
   graphics file, such as a vector drawing in SVG or a bitmap graphic
   file, using a URI.  In this case, the textual content acts as a
   fallback for output representations that do not support graphics;
   thus, it ought to contain either (1) a "line art" variant of the
   graphics or (2) prose that describes the included image in sufficient
   detail.

However RFC 7998 the prep tool says:

      If an <artwork> element has a "src" attribute, and the element
       has content, give an error.

These two statements are in direct conflict.

Jim

> -----Original Message-----
> From: xml2rfc-dev [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Jim
> Schaad
> Sent: Monday, January 1, 2018 10:10 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> Cc: 'Nevil Brownlee' <[email-masked]>; [email-masked]
> Subject: [xml2rfc-dev] Questions about the artwork element
> 
> Paul,
> 
> element and in the alt attribute of the <artwork> element.  This means
that I
> am not sure what the order of using multiple items would be.
> 
> First guess,
> 
use the
> alt attribute if present 3. Use the alt attribute if present
> 
intended to
> be a single long text string that would be the intended format.
> This means that one cannot use some of the features of formatting that
> might be useful in presenting the alternative description in text.  These
might
> be multiple paragraphs, bullet points and so forth.  While one can do
these
> 2.  Is the order of displaying alternative descriptions correct?  Or
should all be
> displayed if all exist?
description?
> 4.  Not sure if this is for you or Nevil, but an SVG can have multiple
<desc>
> elements.  Is there a defined way that these should be combined together
to
> form the alternative text?  Is that a function of the XML2RFC document or
of
> the format that the artwork is presented in?
> 
> 
> Jim
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> xml2rfc-dev mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/xml2rfc-dev

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2018 19:27:53 +0100

> These two statements are in direct conflict.

I recommend opening tickets at <https://github.com/rfc-format>.

Best regards, Julian