csprd01- 18, 24, and 36: Glossary Module Design

[Ryan King <ryanki@microsoft.com>]

Hi Jörg and Chase,

 

I hope you don’t mind that I respond to both of you on the same mail. Regarding your comments on the glossary module in the recent public review of the XLIFF 2.0 spec:

 

Jörg: “It is unclear if for the "term" type the 'ref' attribute could be used to establish a relationship with entries in the Glossary module. The Glossary module does not have a mechanism, e.g. an attribute such as 'termId', or even an element, that allows for dereferencing” AND “The Glossary module is a very simple incarnation of a bi-lingual terminology resource (source and target language of the <xliff> element) that does not offer either a mechanism to relate the <term> entries with <source> and <target> content or any other means to accomplish such a relationship by, for example, a term or even a concept identifier. Variations or synonyms are also not foreseen, and always require a new entry. The only attribute that is required is 'source' for the <definition> element which is certainly very bizarre in this context. The module has it is defined in the specification is useless because it only provides an isolated data bag.”

 

Chase: “I am not a term expert, but I am concerned that this schema is overly simplistic. There is no way identify correlate term entries with segment content. The per-term metadata is very limited; in particular term variations are not supported.”

 

We will make the following changes to the specification to address these and other issues:

 

1.       Add an id attribute to <glossentry> so that it can be referenced by the <mrk> element as a term annotation.

2.       Change the source attribute on <definition> to be optional.

3.       Allow elements and attributes from any namespace in <glossentry> for extensibility

4.       Allow attributes from any namespace in children of <glossentry> for extensibility

5.       Allow <translation> to appear zero, one, or more times with an id to support synonym translations.

 

Here is an example:

 

<unit id="1">

  <segment>

    <source>Press the <mrk id="m1" type="term" ref="#g1">TAB key</mrk>.</source>

  </segment>

  <gls:glossary>

    <gls:glossentry id="g1">

      <gls:term abc:concept-id=”25”>TAB key</gls:term>

      <gls:translation id="1">Tabstopptaste</gls:translation>

      <gls:translation id="2">TAB-TASTE</gls:translation>

      <gls:definition>A keyboard key that is traditionally used to insert tab characters into a document.</gls:definition>

      <abc:usageNotes>To be used when referring to a physical device</abc:usageNotes>

    </gls:glossentry>

  </gls:glossary> 

</unit>

 

Thanks for your interest in XLIFF 2.0!

 

Ryan