[xliff-comment] Formats other than xml

["Yves Savourel" <yves@opentag.com>]

> My question is more in the way of investigation into 
> how tied to the xml file format the structure is, 
> and if other formats had been considered while 
> retaining the actual structure of the XLIFF object.

I don't think the XLIFF structure is tied to XML, you could certainly represent the same structure in JSON, in memory, or in other formats.

It seems that most of the issues here are related to the shortcomings of XML in Flash, which in this case happens to use XLIFF to store the localized data.

XLIFF was designed for exchanging data between tools during the localization process, not to be a permanent storage for multilingual resources used at runtime. Ideally Flash would use its own format, adapted to its own needs, and simply offer an export/import to XLIFF feature for the localization process.

So, if I needed to use a more efficient system for resources in Flash, I would implement one, possibly using JSON, and provide a way to extract/merge the translatable data of that format info/from XLIFF.

Note that the XLIFF TC is currently working on XLIFF 2.0, so your feedback and suggestions on how to improve XLIFF are very timely.

Cheers,
-yves