First Public Working Draft: Text Layout Requirements for the Arabic Script

22 February 2018

The Arabic Layout Task Force, part of the W3C Internationalization Interest Group, has published a First Public Working Draft of Text Layout Requirements for the Arabic Script. This document describes the basic requirements for Arabic script layout and text support on the Web and in eBooks. These requirements provide information for Web technologies such as CSS, HTML and digital publications about how to support users of Arabic scripts. Currently the document focuses on Standard Arabic and Persian. Public comments are welcome, please raise them as github issues.

Read how W3C Internationalization (i18n) is making the World Wide Web worldwide.

WebAssembly First Public Working Drafts

15 February 2018

The WebAssembly Working Group has published three First Public Working Drafts:

• WebAssembly Core Specification describes version 1.0 of the core WebAssembly standard, a safe, portable, low-level code format designed for efficient execution and compact representation.
• WebAssembly JavaScript Interface provides an explicit JavaScript API for interacting with WebAssembly.
• WebAssembly Web API describes the integration of WebAssembly with the broader web platform.

WebAssembly is a virtual instruction set architecture with many use cases and can be embedded in many different environments, that enables high performance applications on the Web. The design goals of WebAssembly are fast, safe, and portable semantics; efficient and portable representation. WebAssembly code is also intended to be easy to inspect and debug, especially in environments like web browsers.

ODRL 2.2 is now a W3C Recommendation

15 February 2018

The Permissions & Obligations Expression Working Group has just published a Recommendation for two documents, namely:

• ODRL Information Model—The Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL) is a policy expression language that provides a flexible and interoperable information model, vocabulary, and encoding mechanisms for representing statements about the usage of content and services. The ODRL Information Model describes the underlying concepts, entities, and relationships that form the foundational basis for the semantics of the ODRL policies.
  Policies are used to represent permitted and prohibited actions over a certain asset, as well as the obligations required to be met by stakeholders. In addition, policies may be limited by constraints (e.g., temporal or spatial constraints) and duties (e.g., payments) may be imposed on permissions.
• ODRL Vocabulary & Expression—The ODRL Vocabulary and Expression describes the terms used in ODRL policies and how to encode them.

Please read more in the W3C Blog about ODRL, its story and its future, ODRL: A Path Well Travelled, a post authored by the working group co-chair, Renato Iannella, Monegraph.

W3C Announces All-out Spec Template Redesign Collaboration

8 February 2018

W3C today announced a collaboration with Jefferson University User Experience and Interaction Design program, which has established a class and a small working group of student designers to re-design the W3C’s specification template, aiming to make the standards for the web easier to use. The scope, requirements and audiences considerations are listed in the SpecProd/Restyle wiki.

The students are asking for your guidance, criticism and participation; and will be posting updates, sharing explorations and revisions, and requesting feedback via the Jefferson + W3C Collaboration blog. Everyone who uses or produces W3C specifications is invited to follow along and contribute. This will be a semester-long project for the students, with the goal of producing a prototype for May 2018. (Implementation and deployment plans will follow.)

First Public Working Draft: CSS Grid Layout Module Level 2

6 February 2018

The CSS Working Group has published a First Public Working Draft of CSS Grid Layout Module Level 2. This CSS module defines a two-dimensional grid-based layout system, optimized for user interface design. In the grid layout model, the children of a grid container can be positioned into arbitrary slots in a predefined flexible or fixed-size layout grid. Level 2 expands Grid by adding “subgrid” capabilities for nested grids to participate in the sizing of their parent grids; and aspect-ratio–controlled gutters.

CSS is a language for describing the rendering of structured documents (such as HTML and XML) on screen, on paper, in speech, etc

Patent Advisory Group Recommends Continuing Work on Web Payments Specifications

2 February 2018

The second Web Payments Working Group Patent Advisory Group (PAG), launched in November 2017, has published a report recommending that W3C continue work on the Web Payments Specifications. W3C launches a PAG to resolve issues in the event a patent has been disclosed that may be essential, but is not available under the W3C Royalty-Free licensing terms.

HTML Media Capture is now a W3C Recommendation

1 February 2018

The Device and Sensors Working Group has published a W3C Recommendation of the HTML Media Capture specification.

The HTML Media Capture specification defines an HTML form extension that facilitates user access to a device’s media capture mechanism, such as a camera, or microphone, from within a file upload control.

Indexed Database API 2.0 is now a W3C Recommendation

30 January 2018

The Web Platform Working Group has published a W3C Recommendation of the Indexed Database API 2.0 specification.

The Indexed Database API 2.0 specification defines APIs for a database of records holding simple values and hierarchical objects. Each record consists of a key and some value. Moreover, the database maintains indexes over records it stores. An application developer directly uses an API to locate records either by their key or by using an index. A query language can be layered on this API. An indexed database can be implemented using a persistent B-tree data structure.

W3C Invites Implementations of WCAG 2.1

30 January 2018

The Accessibility Guidelines Working Group invites implementations of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Candidate Recommendation. WCAG 2.1 covers a wide range of recommendations for making Web content more accessible to a wider range of people with disabilities, including blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, learning disabilities, cognitive limitations, limited movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity, and combinations of these. These guidelines address accessibility of web content on desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices. Following these guidelines will also often make your Web content more usable to users in general. See the post WCAG 2.1 is a Candidate Recommendation for more information about this publication.