Re: [xliff] Localization Directives...

[Shigemichi Yazawa <yazawa@globalsight.com>]

At Mon, 21 Oct 2002 11:59:00 +0100,
Enda McDonnell wrote:
> 
> We are due to discuss these issues at an xliff meeting tomorrow, where we
> can use this input.  An outline of how you provide for this at GlobalSight
> with some samples would be very useful for this discussion, if it is
> possible.

I don't know how much I can disclose the information, but I can talk
about an outline.

When you import an XML file into the system, you can specify a XML
rule file to use for the import. The rule file describes which
elements and attributes are to be translated. If no rule file is
specified, a default rule is applied. The default rule is that all
element contents are translatable and all attribute values are not.

A rule file itself is an XML document. Basically, a rule file consists
of <translate> and <dont-translate> elements. Both elements have a
path attribute which selects a certain part of the document by XPath
expression. Obviously <translate> selects translatable element or
attribute and <dont-translate> selects non-translatable parts. And
these rules are applied on top of the default rule. So you don't need
to write <dont-translate> rule for attribute, which is
non-translatable by default.

<translate> optionally has a inline attribute. If the value of the
attribute is yes, the selected element by the path attribute is
treated as inline element. An inline element is an element that is
included in the other element. The parser doesn't break the segment at
the element so the translation can be done on a whole segmented unit
(sentence, paragraph, etc). Examples of inline element are <b> or <i>
elements of XHTML.

There are some other elements and attributes in the rule file, but
these are not essential for the discussion.

Example:

Source XML:
<foo>
  <bar>
    <baz>This is <bold>translatable</bold> text.</baz>
  </bar>

  <baz>This is not translatable.</baz>
</foo>

Rule file:
<rule>
  <dont-translate path="/foo/baz" />
  <translate path="//bold" inline="yes" />
</rule>

If the rule file is applied to the source xml, "This is
<bold>translatable</bold> text." is parsed as translatable as a
whole. "This is not translatable." is parsed as non-translatable.

A rule file for a sample xml file in your Attribute.html can be
written as below.

<rule>
  <!-- select all elements as non-translatable -->
  <dont-translate path="//*" /> 

  <translate path="/window/menubar/menu/menupopup/menuitem/@value" />
  <translate path="/window/menubar/menu/menupopup/menuitem[@value!='Redo']/@accesskey" />
</rule>

-------------------
Shigemichi Yazawa
yazawa@globalsight.com