Internationalization and Localization Markup

Felix Sasaki, W3C
Slides:
http://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/0803-i18nindia-its/

Overview

Background
Users and Usages of ITS
Basic Concepts of ITS
Overview of ITS "Data Categories"

Overview

Background
Users and Usages of ITS
Basic Concepts of ITS
Overview of ITS "Data Categories"

What's ITS?

ITS: W3C Internationalization Tag Set Working Group
ITS Working Draft: currently addressing "Last Call" comments
Also (1): Internationalization and Localization Markup Requirements
Also (2): Best Practices for XML Internationalization

Targets of ITS

example target: schema (XML DTD, XML Schema, RELAX NG) with @translate attribute

<!ELEMENT p ...>
<!ATTLIST p its:translate (yes|no) #IMPLIED>

Targets of ITS

example problem: which <string> elements need translation?

<resources>
 <section id="Homepage">
[...]
  <keyvalue_pairs>
   <string>Page</string>
   <string>ABC Corporation - Policy Repository</string>
   <string>Footer_Last</string>
   <string>Pages</string>
   <string>bgColor</string>
   <string>NavajoWhite</string>  
   <string>title</string>
   <string>List of Available Policies</string>
  </keyvalue_pairs>
 </section>
</resources>

Overview

Background
Users and Usages of ITS
Basic Concepts of ITS
Overview of ITS "Data Categories"

User: Schema Developers

Schema developers using "translatability" data category: Add @its:translate attribute to your schema
or: ...

User: Schema Developers

... specify separate rules for translatability
(no change of schema or document necessary):

<its:rules its:version="1.0" ...>
 <its:ns prefix="myns" uri="http://www.example.com/myschema"/>
 <its:translateRule translate="yes" selector="//myns:p"/>
<!-- All p elements should be translated -->
</its:rules>

User: Content Producers

Use the @its:translate attribute in your document
or: ...

Users: Content Producers

... specify ITS rules separately

<its:rules xmlns:its="http://www.w3.org/2005/11/its" its:version="1.0">
 <its:translateRule translate="no" selector="//dt"/>
<its:rules>

<text> ...
 <body> ...
  <p> ... <dl><dt>...</dt><dd>...</dd></dl></p>
 </body>
</text>

Target: What kind of XML?

Documents with textual content (e.g. XHTML)
XML used for software development
Combination of these
... e.g.: offical documents, to be translated in various languages

Overview

Background
Users and Usages of ITS
Basic Concepts of ITS
Overview of ITS "Data Categories"

Basic Concepts of ITS: Summary

ITS "data categories"
Selection of nodes locally (example: @its:translate attribute)
Selection of nodes globally (example: <its:translateRule> element)
Adding information to selected nodes / pointing to existing information

Notion of "Data Categories"

"Data categories" defined conceptually in prose:

The data category translatability expresses information about
whether the content of an element or attribute should be
translated or not. The values of this data category are "yes" (translatable)
or "no" (not translatable).

... implemented in various schema languages
... implemented globally (e.g. <its:translateRule> element) or
... implementet locally (e.g. @its:translate attribute)

Selection of Nodes

Selection local: mainly via attributes
Uses data category specific defaults / inheritance behavoir
Example default: "Translatability information pertains to
element content, not attribute content."

Selection of Nodes

<article xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
 ... its:version="1.0">
 <info id="a001">
  <title>An example article</title>
  <author>
   <personname>
    <firstname>John</firstname>
    <surname>Doe</surname>
   </personname>
   <address>...</address>   
  </author>
 </info>
</article>

Selection of Nodes

<article xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
 ... its:version="1.0">
 <info id="a001">
  <title>An example article</title>
  <author its:translate="no">
   <personname>
    <firstname>John</firstname>
    <surname>Doe</surname>
   </personname>
   <address>...</address>   
  </author>
 </info>
</article>

Selection of Nodes

Selection global, using XPath
Global rules are in a separate or the same document

<its:rules ... its:version="1.0">
 <its:ns prefix="my" uri="myvocabulary.com"/>
 <its:translateRule selector="//my:term" translate="no"/>
 <its:translateRule selector="//my:term/@desc" translate="yes"/>
</its:rules>

<topic id="myTopic" xmlns="myvocabulary.com">
 <title>Using ITS</title>
 <prolog>...</prolog>
 <body>
  <p>An 
<term id="t001" desc="Some translatable text">ITS 
  <termRef loc="t002">namespace</termRef></term>
definition exists ...</p>
 </body>
</topic>

Selection of Nodes

No (or minimal) impact on documents / schemas
Data categories can pertain to more than one node (e.g. all <term> elements)
... and to attributes as well (e.g. the @desc attribute)
Inheritance behavoir / defaults are identical to local usage of ITS

Adding ITS information vs. Pointing

Translatability: adding information ("translate yes" or "translate no") to nodes in documents
Other data categories: adding and / or pointing to existing information
Example: adding localization information via the <locInfoRule> element with <locNote> child:

<its:rules its:version="1.0">
 <its:locInfoRule locInfoType="alert" selector="//body/p[1]">
  <its:locNote>This p element has to be handled carefully"</its:locNote>
 </its:locInfoRule>
</its:rules>

versus ...

Adding ITS information vs. Pointing

... pointing to existing localization information via the <locInfoRule> element with @locNotePointer attribute:

<its:rules its:version="1.0" ...>
 <its:locInfoRule locInfoType="alert"
  locNotePointer="@locn-alert" selector="//*"/>
 <its:locInfoRule locInfoType="description"
  locNotePointer="//@locn-note" selector="//*"/>
</its:rules>

Pointing to existing information = saying "this value is a value of an ITS data category"
Useful for specifying ITS "semantics" of values, e.g. for authoring tools ("highlight all ITS localization information")

Overview

Background
Users and Usages of ITS
Basic Concepts of ITS
Overview of ITS "Data Categories"

Overview of ITS Data Categories

Translatability (previous slides)
Localization Information (previous slides)
Terminology
Directionality
Ruby
Language Information
Elements within text

Terminology

Used to identify terms, to increase terminological consistency
Reference to further information about the term: @termInfoRef attribute

<its:rules its:version="1.0">
 <its:termRule selector="//body/p[1]/span"
termInfoRef="http://example.com/termdatabase/#x142539"/>
</its:rules>

Terminology

Available global (with pointing / adding)

<its:rules its:version="1.0">
 <its:termRule selector="//body/p[1]/span"
termInfoRefPointer="@myTermRef"/>
</its:rules>

... or local

<myDoc ...>
 <p>The definition of <def its:term="yes" 
  its:termInfoRef="http://example.com/termdatabase/#x142539">X</def>...</p>
</myDoc>

Directionality

Expresses the directionality of a piece of text
Available global (only with adding)

<its:rules its:version="1.0">
 <its:dirRule dir="rtl" selector="/body/p[1]/quote[myns:dir='rtl']"/>
</its:rules>

... or local

<myDoc ...>
 <p>... <quote  its:dir="rtl"> ...
<!-- Some Hebrew quotation -->
 </quote>...</p>
</myDoc>

Ruby

Provides a short annotation of the associated base text e.g. for pronunciation
Available local

<text its:version="1.0">
 <head> ... </head>
 <body>
  <p>This is about the
   <its:ruby>
    <its:rb>W3C</its:rb>
    <its:rt>World Wide Web Consortium</its:rt>
   </its:ruby>
  </p>
 </body>
</text>

Ruby

... or global (with adding / pointing)

<its:rules its:version="1.0">
 <its:rubyRule rubyText="World Wide Web Consortium"
  selector="//p[1]/span[@class='ruby']"/>
</its:rules>

Language Information

Expresses that a given piece of content (selected by the attribute langPointer) is used to express language information in compliance with xml:lang
Values of xml:lang: listen to talk tomorrow
Available only global, only with pointing. Local: you should use xml:lang directly

<its:rules its:version="1.0">
 <its:langRule selector="//p" langPointer="@mylangattribute"/>
</its:rules>

Elements Within Text

Adds information globally (for segmentation purposes) about the position of selected elements

<its:rules its:version="1.0">
 <its:withinTextRule withinText="yes" selector="//b | //em | //i"/>
 <its:withinTextRule withinText="no" selector="//p"/>
 <its:withinTextRule withinText="nested" selector="//p/footnote/p"/>
</its:rules>

@withinText="yes": element is in text flow of a different element
@withinText="no": element constitutes an independent text flow
@withinText="nested": element is nested in a text flow, but constitutes an independent text flow

Overview

Background
Users and Usages of ITS
Basic Concepts of ITS
Overview of ITS "Data Categories"

Future of this work

Presented framework of ITS is stable, but not finalized
We are also looking into requirements for further developments
Your input is highly appreciated!