XLIFF and XForms addendum

[Andrzej Zydron <azydron@xml-intl.com>]

Hi,

First of all thank you to David and Bryan for bringing additional 
translatable elements to my attention. As you may have gathered I am not 
an expert (yet) on XForms.

Having trawled through the documentation again I can confirm that the 
following elements can contain translatable text by virtue of their 
schema content being declared as <xsd:complexType mixed="true">:

1) <label> - contains the form input control description.
2) <hint> - contains a message that is shown at the discretion of the 
XForm processor, for instance when a mouse hovers over the control.
3) <help> - contains a message that is shown when a user explicitly 
requests help by for instance pressing the F1 key.
4) <alert> - contains a message that is to be displayed when an error 
condition arises as in the case of a form validation error.
5) <value> - contains item values for list controls.
6) <message> - there are three types of message, specified but their 
"level" attribute: modal, ephemeral and modeless. Messages are under the 
control of XForms actions and are triggered when specific XForm events 
occur.

In addition the <setvalue> XForms action is used to dynamically set the 
value of a field and its content model is defined as <xsd:simpleContent>.


O'Reilly's XForms Essentials by Micah Dubinko recommends the following 
technique for XForms localization:

Rather than embedding translatable text directly into an XForm such as:

<p>Please complete the following questions</p>
<input bind="term">
   <label>Search:</label>
</input>
<select bind="where">
   <label>Search the following locations on this web site:</label>
   <item>
     <label>Product information</label>
.
.
.

An external file should be used to hold the translatable text using the 
following notation:

<instance id="strings" src="l18n-strings.xml"/>

<p><output value="instance('strings')/msg.top"/></p>
<input bind="term">
   <label><output value="instance('strings')/label.term"/></label>
</input>
<select bind="where">
   <label><output value="instance('strings')/label.where"/></label>
   <item>
     <label><output value="instance('strings')/label.where.item1"/></label>
.
.
.

Where the contents of l18n-strings.xml would be:

<strings>
   <msg.top>Please complete the following questions</msg.top>
   <label.term>Search:</label.term>
   <label.where>Search the following locations on this web 
site:</label.where>
   <label.where.item1>Product information</label.where.item1>
.
.
</strings>

Attributes:

In all of the extensive XForms examples that I have sifted through I 
have not come across anything that would approximate to the use of 
attributes as translatable text in any form. That is not to say that 
this could occur. Most attributes in XForms are designed for use as 
XPath and XSDSchema control and action settings or as reference 
variables. If anyone else could throw more light on this I would be 
grateful. I have written to the XForms discussion list 
(www-forms@w3c.org) seeking clarification on this issue and confirmation 
regarding translatable elements.

Regards,

AZ

-- 


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