Meeting Notes: RE: [xliff] REMINDER: TODAY'S Informal Discussion: XLIFF

Attending: Tony, Rudolfo, Doug

Topic: Open discussion on XLIFF-DITA interchange best practices and related issues.

Tony> purpose of this meeting is to brainstorm what the TC can and should do to provide guidance to those who want to localise / translate DITA content, with potential recommended best practice centered around XLIFF as intermediate container.

Rudolfo> DITA is just the same as other XML; Best practices for XML - XLIFF interop would be the same as

Eg: Heartsome uses skeleton - translatable content is pulled out to XLIFF, untranslatable remains in skeleton; do not use

XSLT; Bryan's XSLT roundtrip tool; Challenge is Segmentation, one approach to use a second pass across XLIFF file to create segmentation but it's complicated.

Doug: DITA not supported yet, by his company but folks are starting to ask for it.

Rudolfo: Arguments are often made that DITA without extracting to XLIFF, since can mark content in DITA as translatable. However, there's no translation related metadata in DITA to manage localisation process. Anecdotally there's now a growing trend of publishers to process content into XLIFF and only send out XLIFF. Vendors are converging on accepting XLIFF.

Complications regarding providing explicit conversion profiles around DITA - XLIFF interchange: DITA files are managed in a tree structure, intended to be used in a CMS, maybe file system. When translating have to keep in mind how to create new tree structure. Handling the translated material in the CMS is complex as would have to keep track of references / links and maps in the content and ensure its preserved in the translated content. Such complex management is really tools specific and is not something that can be boiled down to in a best practices document. So we should not say how to write XLIFF file from DITA - ie., depends on the context, but should instead provide best practices through something like a profile document.

RECOMMENDATION TO XLIFF TC:

The best practice of interchanging data between DITA and XLIFF is the same issue as how to interchange data XML and XLIFF in general... e.g., how to use XLIFF with ITS, XML:tm, etc. We suggest that the TC author profile documents similar to the other profiles we've developed, ie, HTML profile... in them we recommend which elements to use or avoid, skeleton file approach, transformation approach, other common problems and recommended solutions. Should address XLIFF <-> ITS, XLIFF <-> XML:TM, XLIFF <-> DITA, maybe XLIFF <-> Docbook.

-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Jewtushenko [mailto:tony.jewtushenko@productinnovator.com]
Sent: 15 June 2006 11:50
To: 'XLIFF TC'
Subject: [xliff] REMINDER: TODAY'S Informal Discussion: XLIFF - DITA interchange best practices

Informal XLIFF TC meeting to discuss issues relating to best practices for DITA – XLIFF interchange. This informal discussion is not required to maintain XLIFF TC membership.

Date: Thursday, 15 June 2006

Time: 11:00am - 12:00pm EST (4pm BST)

Event Description:

Standing monthly XLIFF TC Teleconference.

1. Call one of the MeetingPlace phone numbers:

From the AMER region dial: * 1-888-967-2253 * +1-650-607-2253

From the APAC region dial: * +61 2 8817 6100

From the EMEA region dial: * +44 118 924 9000

2. Enter the Meeting ID (805534) followed by the # key

3. If the organizer has not started the meeting you will be:

a. Asked to speak your name followed by the # key

b. Placed in the waiting room on music hold until the organizer starts the meeting.

If the organizer has started the meeting you will be:

a. Asked to enter the Meeting Password (030543)

b. Asked to speak your name followed by the # key

AGENDA:

Open meeting to discuss the best practices for DITA / XML XLIFF transformations.

Tony Jewtushenko

Director- R&D - Product Innovator Ltd. (Ireland)

P: +353.1.8875183; M: +353.87.2479057; W: www.productinnovator.com

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