[uf-discuss] Re: Precise Expansion Patterns

[Manu Sporny]

Paul Wilkins wrote:
> Another possible solution is to provide greater detail for the time itself.
> 
> <abbr title="00:23:00">2:23</abbr>
> 
> This I understand is an acceptable title for screen readers, it
> expands suitably on 2:23 (which could be 2 hours 23 minutes or 2
> minutes 23 seconds) and it's computer understandable in an ISO 8601
> manner.

If you are suggesting that we use the hh:mm:ss time format for
expressing duration, we cannot. That would be an abuse of the ISO 8601
standard. The standard is very specific about specifying TIME and about
specifying DURATION. Duration MUST be in one of the following formats,
where 0-values can be omitted:

PnnYnnMnnDTnnHnnMnnS
PnnYnnWnnDTnnHnnMnnS
P<date>T<time>

This is correct for a duration of 2 minutes, 23 seconds: PT2M23S
This is not: 00:02:23

Here's what the various approaches thus far look like when you put them
on an HTML page:

http://uf.digitalbazaar.com/unit-tests/sandbox/isodata.html

There are really two questions that we're attempting to answer here:

1. Can we make screen readers not read the @title, of whatever element
   we choose, out loud?
2. Do we care that "PT2M23S" will appear if the person browsing hovers
   their cursor over the text denoting the duration, if that is the only
   way we can successfully utilize ISO standards in the Microformats
   community?

-- manu