Re: [Bodington-developers] TMX for i18n

[Alistair Y. <ali...@sm...>]

> HTML translates all tabs, spaces and newlines into a space
yes but a newline in a properties value breaks the properties file. web 
devs use line breaks in gui editors to make it nicer to see what 
they're doing. They'd have to remove all linebreaks before putting the 
content in a properties value.

I keep banging on about web devs (rollnecks) but when you think about 
it, you can't use bod templates in a rollneck ide anyway as they're so 
naff (the templates, not the rollnecks!)

I mentioned tmx to test the water. It's cutting edge and groovy, yes.

So, the middle ground. I've already chucked away one version of i18n 
and I'm prepared to chuck more if need be. head could have been a lot 
worse - I don't commit everything!

what about xml properties files sitting in the classpath, one per 
template, per language?

Alistair


On 24 May 2005, at 15:42, Matthew Buckett wrote:

> I'm not saying Alistair Young wrote:
>>> What problems do you envisage?
>> outside of classpath I have to worry about windows - do I have time? 
>> no!
>
> :-)
>
>>> Does this make it harder for people to be working on translations at 
>>> the same time as someone has to merge the files back together
>> not sure yet - tmx files are designed to be used with translation
>
> Properties files are also designed to be loaded into translation 
> software and they are probably supported by more translation software 
> than TMX.
>
>> applications rather than hand editors. Anyway, that's how cvs works. 
>> I would think that users would donate translations to the community 
>> and we would be responsible for merging them into the tree, just as 
>> we are for code.
>
> Seems to be making more work for us.
>
>>> What do we gain?
>> each template has only one resource file rather than, say 10
>
> How is that better?
>
>>> What is wrong with the properties file approach?
>> the biggest problem I've found is the fact that properties files are 
>> meant for strings, not content. You can't have linebreaks in a 
>> properties file value. As most web devs put these in to make it 
>> easier to design, they'd have to remove them to localise the 
>> template. XML gets round this problem.
>
> HTML translates all tabs, spaces and newlines into a space (unless 
> inside a <pre>, I forget the CSS equivelent).
>
>>> Doesn't this mean someone has to have an understanding of XML
>> not necessarily - we must stop thinking as developers and start 
>> thinking as translators, who use gui apps and reuse localisations. I 
>> find the lack of translator input into bodington very frustrating.
>
> Did most of the moodle translation get some by professional 
> translators? I'm guessing it was some french bloke who happened to 
> install it and found it easy to hack at a translation. I agree that 
> supporting professional translators is good but this is not the only 
> way to get an application translated.
>
>  >> So if we have 500 templates all 500 TMX files would be loaded into
>>> memory?
>> ditto for property files
>> There are two facets of the i18n process. One is internal, where each 
>> language template class harvests it's own language specific content 
>> and stores it in an internal representation, in the most efficient 
>> manner mangageable. The other is external, where humans are doing the 
>> translation work, most probably using tools designed specifically for 
>> the job. I think tmx files will suit both facets.
>
> I think it comes down to us seeing the translation being done 
> differently.
>
>> Although there may be 25 languages per template, times 500, that 
>> makes a lot of class files but they're only loaded into memory upon 
>> access. If the system supports 25 languages but only one is ever used 
>> then only one set of resources is ever loaded.
>
> But if all the languages are in one file then all the languages will 
> get loaded for each template. If we used ResourceBundles then only the 
> used languages would get loaded.
>
> Isn't adding TMX also adding more complexity. ResourceBundle is 
> reasonably bug free. Although I'm sure you'd write a good TMX 
> implementation it wouldn't have had the ammount of testing/tweaking 
> that ResourceBundle has.
>
> -- 
> +--Matthew Buckett-----------------------------------------+
> | VLE Developer, Learning Technologies Group               |
> | Tel: +44 (0) 1865 283660 http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/       |
> +------------Computing Services, University of Oxford------+
>
>
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