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Subject: Meeting Notes: [xliff] Reminder: details for today's XLIFF TC optional discussion meeting


Attendees:  Tony, Doug, Mat

 

We discussed the topic of whether the XLIFF TC should recommend a “Best Practice” for creation of XLIFF documents when extracting content from other resource formats.  Specifically, the main issue is whether as a new XLIFF document is created initially if a blank “target” element should be created and populated from the contents of “source” element upon extraction,  or on the other hand if the new XLIFF document should be created without “target” elements.

 

First we all agreed that any recommendation for extraction “best practices” would not be included in the normative spec or non-normative representation guides.  Any recommendations for tools developers would be strictly limited to a couple of *brief* paragraphs or even sentences in a FAQ or Whitepaper.  It was agreed that some mention of a couple of recommended scenarios would be a good idea, but to stress that it’s really up to the tools developer to decide on features.

 

Secondly, we all agreed that an XLIFF document with source but no target elements is still a valid XLIFF document, and as such XLIFF capable tools should support opening such a document for editing. What the tool does next is not to be specified in any TC recommendation. It was mentioned that XLIFF enabled tools produce new XLIFF documents inconsistently – ie, one tool copies source -> target while another creates new XLIFFs without a target.  It was recommended that the FAQ or whitepaper indicates that opening XLIFF documents without target elements should be supported by all XLIFF tools, as it is a perfectly valid document.

 

Third, it was mentioned that the IGNITE EU funded project will be working independently to “certify” localization tools for compliance with localization standards, XLIFF being one of them.  They would be the natural body to establish best practices for implementing best practices, not the XLIFF TC.  We should of course provide input.  And TC members may contribute to that group as well – see http://www.igniteweb.org

 

We briefly discussed the most logical scenarios for creating a new XLIFF document and target element handling during an extraction process:

  1. Do not create a ”target” element when no translation exists.  Omit the structure completely.  Let the tool or user decide to create the “target” when they need it,  and optionally copy over content and attributes & their values – these are feature specs for the tool developer to decide how to handle.
  2. Create a “target” element and populate it with the entire elements contents and properties w/ values from the “source” element.  Mark it with an appropriate state such as “needs-translation”
  3. Create a “target” element but leave it empty or fill it with some sort of content, and populate with properties w/ values from the “source” element.

 

Advantages of Scenario 1:

1.       Conserves space, improves tool performance and reduces network bandwidth requirements by eliminating redundant content.

2.       Lets the tool decide on best way to create a target.

 

Disadvantages of Scenario 1:

  1. Translation tool or other process would have to have logic to test for presence of “target” element, then create “targets” when necessary, and decide what content should be copied over from “source” – could have performance implications in some scenarios.
  2. Relies on tool or user to decide if markup should be copied over – may result in corruption or unintentional omission of markup

 

Advantages of Scenario 2:

  1. simplifies logic of tool and reduces structural complexity of XLIFF documents
  2. ensures the markup in “target” is identical to “source”

 

Disadvantages of Scenario 2:

  1. Creates unnecessary content that can negatively affect storage, processing and performance.
  2. imposes limitation on tool and user behavior to a very narrow set of functionality ( ie., reduces ability to design clever or user friendly features)

 

Advantages of Scenario 3:

  1. Couldn’t really think of any – scenario seems unlikely and poorly conceived.

 

Disadvantages of Scenario 3:

  1. implies inconsistent tool feature behavior and unstructured content
  2. does not provide any of the advantages of either of the 2 scenarios but all of their negatives.

 

That’s about it.

 

Further suggestions and comments are welcome, and I’d like to progress this discussion via email as far as possible.

 

Regards,

Tony

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Jewtushenko [mailto:tony.jewtushenko@productinnovator.com]
Sent:
01 June 2006 10:38
To: 'XLIFF TC'
Subject: [xliff] Reminder: details for today's XLIFF TC optional discussion meeting

 

Informal XLIFF TC meeting to discuss issues relating to best practices for extraction process.  This informal discussion is not required to maintain XLIFF TC membership.

 

Date:  Thursday, 1 June 2006

Time:  11:00am - 12:00pm EST (4pm BST)

 

Event Description:

Standing monthly XLIFF TC Teleconference.

1. Call one of the MeetingPlace phone numbers:

From the AMER region dial: * 1-888-967-2253 * +1-650-607-2253

From the APAC region dial: * +61 2 8817 6100

From the EMEA region dial: * +44 118 924 9000

 

2. Enter the Meeting ID (805534) followed by the # key

 

3. If the organizer has not started the meeting you will be:

 

a. Asked to speak your name followed by the # key

b. Placed in the waiting room on music hold until the organizer starts the meeting.

 

If the organizer has started the meeting you will be:

 

a. Asked to enter the Meeting Password (030543)

b. Asked to speak your name followed by the # key

 

 

AGENDA:

 

 

c. (OPEN) Best practice: should extraction process create target elements?

Topic proposed by Doug. Discussed in mailing list:

Initial Proposal (Doug): http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/xliff/200603/msg00023.html

Comment (Bryan): http://www.oasis-open.org/archives/xliff/200603/msg00025.html

Comment (Tony): http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/xliff/200603/msg00035.html

Comment (Rodolfo): http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/xliff/200603/msg00032.html

 

Need a meeting to discuss the best practices for DITA / XML XLIFF transformations, amongst the issues noted above.

Rodolfa suggested that Tuesday would not be a good idea to have it on Tuesday as this conflicts with the DITA meeting.

 

Tony Jewtushenko

Director- R&D - Product Innovator Ltd. (Ireland)

P: +353.1.8875183; M: +353.87.2479057; W: www.productinnovator.com

 



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