[xliff] Phases of alt-trans

[John Reid <jreid@novell.com>]

Hi All,

 

Yves originally suggested using the existence of the match-quality attribute to determine whether an alt-trans was leveraged or change control. Match-quality is free text that can contain a score or any arbitrary value based on the tool that generates the <alt-trans>. Unfortunately this makes it difficult to rely on that attribute.

 

Mark suggested adding a reason attribute to the <alt-trans> with the values 'TM Suggestion', 'MT Suggestion', 'Rejected-Inaccurate', 'Rejected-Spelling', 'Rejected-Grammar' and 'Rejected-Length'. This would allow us to mark an alt-trans as being leveraged ('TM Suggestion' and 'MT Suggestion') or change-control ('Rejected-Inaccurate', 'Rejected-Spelling', 'Rejected-Grammar' and 'Rejected-Length'). Thus, all <target>s in an <alt-trans> would have to have the same reason. Or, rather, a new <alt-trans> would be needed for each of the rejected reasons. This may create a lot of <alt-trans> but only if someone (the translator?) is doing a poor job. Likely there will only be very few of these.

 

I had suggested we use the origin attribute of <alt-trans> with the value 'this-file' to indicate a change-control. This would require enumerating that one value for origin and making any other values to begin with an 'x-', to be consistent. That just isn't very practical.

 

Maybe a combination Yves's and Mark's suggestions are the answer. Enumerate match-quality with Mark's values and allow extension.

 

I still stand by my suggestion of adding a state attribute to <trans-unit> for the reasons outlined. I also suggested to add Mark's reason values to state. However, I suggest that we not do that.

 

cheers,

john