dita-translation message

Subject: FW: The translate attribute and "partial" translations

From: "JoAnn Hackos" <joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com>
To: <dita-translation@lists.oasis-open.org>,"Bryan Schnabel" <bryan.s.schnabel@tek.com>,<christian.lieske@sap.com>,<dpooley@sdl.com>,<esrig-ia@esrig.com>,<fsasaki@w3.org>,<rfletcher@sdl.com>,"Howard.Schwartz" <Howard.Schwartz@trados.com>,<ishida@w3.org>,<rmraya@maxprograms.com>,<tony.jewtushenko@productinnovator.com>,<ysavourel@translate.com>
Date: Fri, 23 May 2008 12:46:36 -0600

Hello All!
I received this post, originally on the dita users list. Let me know
what you think about his request. We can take this up at the next
meeting. I'm attending the PTC/Users conference (Arbortext Editor) on
June 2. So, I'd like to hold the next meeting on 16 June. Please mark
your calendars for that date. In the meantime, please review Kara's and
Andrzej's changes/additions to the acronym best practice. I sent those
last week with the meeting invitation. We had very few people at the
meeting last week, so we're still working on the same topics: two best
practices (acronym and multi-language) that need to be completed and one
best practice (glossary) that  needs to be drafted.

Best wishes,
JoAnn

JoAnn T. Hackos, PhD
President
Comtech Services, Inc.
710 Kipling Street, Suite 400
Denver, CO 80215
303-232-7586
joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com
joannhackos Skype
www.comtech-serv.com

-----Original Message-----
From: steve.anderson@gmail.com [mailto:steve.anderson@gmail.com] On
Behalf Of Steve Anderson
Sent: Friday, May 23, 2008 11:44 AM
To: JoAnn Hackos
Subject: Re: The translate attribute and "partial" translations

Hi Joann, here's my original post.

    Steve
===========

Many elements in DITA include a translate attribute. It has a value
of yes or no. We've been using it in a way similar to the filterable
attributes (platform, audience, otherprops, etc.). Before sending our
files out for translation, we remove all the content that is marked as
translate="no".

As an aside, I'm surprised that the translate attribute isn't
filterable like audience.

Anyway, translate yes/no is good for simple situations, but for more
complex situations it fails. For example, if you have a topic that is
translated into some, but not all languages (a "partial" translation),
you can't set translate="no" on it, since, in some cases, it should be
translated.

Does anyone have a good method for marking up their content for this
kind of need? I'm sure I'm not the only one with this use case.

I know there is a subcommittee devoted to localization, but I'm not
sure what their progress has been. Links to that information would be
very helpful, too.

Steve