W3C I18N news: Overview

Time to change your RSS feed

Wed, 28 Jun 2006 00:00:01 GMT

Closing this RSS Feed The W3C Internationalization Activity home page was converted to a blog format in April of this year. The blog supersedes these news filter pages, although similar categories will be used to group blog posts. The old pages will remain available as a historical record. The new blog approach also makes it possible to easily host short articles with a comment facility, such as requests for public feedback. If you are subscribed to this RSS feed, you should now subscribe to this new feed.

Working with Composite Messages

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 12:45:03 GMT

New article The article looks at design and development practices that can cause major problems for translation. Designers must be very careful about how they split up and reuse text on-screen because the linguistic differences between languages can lead to real headaches for localizers and may in some cases make a reasonable translation impossible to achieve. [search key: composite-messages]

Re-using Strings in Scripted Content

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 12:45:02 GMT

New article The article looks at a particular design and development practise that can cause major problems for translation of content. Many programmers and designers decide that if a particular string is used in many places, they will use copies of the same string rather than implement many identical strings. String reuse is not necessarily a bad thing. The trick is to know what constitutes a good candidate for reuse and what does not. If you get it wrong, you can be creating an insuperable obstacle to good localization. [search key: text-reuse]

Internationalization Quick Tips for the Web

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 12:45:02 GMT

New Getting Started material The W3C GEO Working Group has developed a set of Quick Tips to help newcomers to Web internationalization. They summarize important concepts related to international Web design in a similar way to the popular WAI Quick Tips. These tips are not complete guidelines, they are simply a few key concepts to bear in mind. The page also links to supporting material, where available, at the W3C's Internationalization Activity subsite. The document is linked from the new Getting Started page that also explains various ways to find information on the W3C Internationalization subsite, and points to some key definitions. [search key: quicktips]

Internationalization Tag Set (ITS)

Thu, 23 Feb 2006 06:00:02 GMT

New Working Draft The Internationalization Tag Set Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of the Internationalization Tag Set (ITS). Organized by data categories, this set of elements and attributes supports the internationalization and localization of schemas and documents. Implementations are provided for DTDs, XML Schema and Relax NG, and for existing vocabularies like XHTML, DocBook and OpenDocument. [search key: itsrec]

Lokalisierung vs. Internationalisierung

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 17:20:00 GMT

Updated translation Thanks to Jens Meiert the translation of the FAQ-based article "Localization vs. Internationalization" has now been updated in German (language negotiated). [search key: qa-i18n]

Article: Working with composite messages

Tue, 16 Feb 2006 12:10:00 GMT

New article for REVIEW Comments are being sought on this article prior to final release. Please send any comments to www-international@w3.org. We expect to publish a final version in one to three weeks. This article provides looks at design and development practices that can cause major problems for translation. Designers must be very careful about how they split up and reuse text on-screen because the linguistic differences between languages can lead to real headaches for localizers and may in some cases make a reasonable translation impossible to achieve.

Article: Re-using strings in scripted content

Tue, 16 Feb 2006 12:12:00 GMT

New article for REVIEW Comments are being sought on this article prior to final release. Please send any comments to www-international@w3.org. We expect to publish a final version in one to three weeks. Many programmers and designers decide that if a particular string is used in many places, they will use copies of the same string rather than implement many identical strings. The perceived advantages to this are to save on memory, to promote consistency in the source and, sometimes, to save on translation cost. The trick is to know what constitutes a good candidate for reuse and what does not. If you get it wrong, you can be creating an insuperable obstacle to good localization.

Arabic mathematical notation

Wed, 01 Feb 2006 12:30:02 GMT

New W3C Note The Math IG just published this Note which analyzes potential problems with the use of MathML for the presentation of mathematics in the notations customarily used with Arabic, and related languages. The goal is to clarify avoidable implementation details that hinder such presentation, as well as to uncover genuine limitations in the specification. These limitations in the MathML specification may require extensions in future versions of the specification. Note: The XHTML+MathML version displays the examples better, if your user agent supports it.

Introducing Character Sets and Encodings

Mon, 23 Jan 2006 10:45:02 GMT

New Getting Started material The W3C GEO Working Group has published the first in a series of articles aimed at those who are new to internationalization. These pages will introduce you to key internationalization topics and tasks, and direct you towards articles or resources on the W3C Internationalization subsite that will take you to the next level of understanding. This document introduces topics in the general area of character sets, encoding, escapes, etc. The document is linked from a new 'Getting Started' page that also explains various ways to find information on the W3C Internationalization subsite, and points to some key definitions.[search key: gettingstarted/characters]

24 ways to impress your friends

Thu, 19 Jan 2006 20:10:02 GMT

New FAQ-based article Molly Holzschlag, I18n GEO Working Group member, recently published an on-line article entitled Putting the World into "World Wide Web", part of a series entitled 24 ways to impress your friends. She makes the point that the art and science of creating sites for global audiences requires a lot more preparation and planning than one might think at first glance.

Localization vs. Internationalization

Wed, 05 Dec 2005 20:10:02 GMT

New FAQ-based article What do the terms 'internationalization' and 'localization' mean, and how are they related?[search key: qa-i18n]

FAQ: xml:lang in XML document schemas

Wed, 24 Nov 2005 11:50:02 GMT

New FAQ-based article When should I use xml:lang and when should I define my own element or attribute for passing language values in an XML document schema (DTD)? [search key: qa-when-xmllang]

Internationalization Tag Set (ITS)

Wed, 23 Nov 2005 18:00:02 GMT

New First Public Working Draft This document defines data categories and their implementation as a set of elements and attributes called the Internationalization Tag Set (ITS). ITS is used with new and existing schemas to support the internationalization and localization of schemas and documents. Implementations of ITS are provided for three schema languages: XML DTDs, XML Schema and RELAX NG. In addition, implementations are provided as fixed modularizations of various existing vocabularies (e.g. XHTML, DocBook, Open Document). The definition of the data categories is still in an early draft stage. [search key: itsrec]

Internationalization and Localization Markup Requirements

Wed, 23 Nov 2005 18:00:01 GMT

Updated Working Draft When creating schemas (XML Schema, DTD, etc.), it is important to include constructs that meet the needs of content authors dealing with international audiences, and address the needs of the localization community. This document provides a list of key requirements to achieve such a goal. It will be used to provide a framework and direction for a detailed solution proposal (or set of proposals) to be developed later. [search key: itsreq]

מה שאתם צריכים לדעת לגבי האלגוריתם הדו-כיווני וסימון פנימי

Wed, 23 Nov 2005 14:20:00 GMT

Updated translation Thanks to Oleg Gaivoronsky the translation of the article "What you need to know about the bidi algorithm and inline markup" has now been updated in Hebrew (language negotiated). [search key: inline-bidi-markup]

أسئلة شائعة: استخدام to Link to Localized Content" has now been translated into Arabic (language negotiated). [search key: qa-navigation-select]

François Yergeau succeeds Addison Phillips

Thu, 14 Nov 2005 10:00:01 GMT

New Chair for the I18n Core Working Group The W3C Director and Internationalization Core Working Group members would like to express our most sincere thanks to Addison Phillips for his contributions to W3C and for chairing the Working Group for the past two years. We are fortunate that François Yergeau (Invited Expert) has accepted the role of Chair of the I18n Core Working Group. François has been contributing to the W3C since 1996.

W3C Indian Office Opens

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 18:00:01 GMT

Internationalization concerns discussed Richard Ishida presented at the W3C Indian Office opening in New Delhi, India. The Office is hosted by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC Noida). Internationalization was high on the agenda of topics discussed during and around the opening ceremony. Only a small proportion of the nearly 1 billion Indians can work in English, for the rest there are 22 constitutional languages and 11 scripts. It is expected that the new office will facilitate the representation of Indian requirements in the development of W3C technologies.

W3C Workshop on Internationalizing SSML

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 18:00:01 GMT

Workshop covers internationalization topics W3C held a Workshop on Internationalizing the Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) on 2-3 November hosted by IBM at the IBM China Research Lab in Beijing, China. Attendees discussed ways to improve rendering of non-English natural languages using the SSML W3C Recommendation which generates synthetic speech and controls pronunciation, volume, pitch and rate. Discussion focussed on topics such as word and tone disambiguation in East Asian languages, and dealing with de-accented text. The Voice Browser WG is discussing the recommendations made, and may hold another workshop to capture requirements for other languages.

Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0: Normalization

Thu, 27 Oct 2005 18:00:01 GMT

Updated W3C Working Draft The Internationalization Core Working Group has published an updated Working Draft of Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0: Normalization to improve text manipulation on the Web. Based on the character model Fundamentals W3C Recommendation, the draft provides authors of specifications, software developers, and content developers with a common reference for text normalization and string identity matching. [search key: charmod-norm]

常见问题：使用 to Link to Localized Content" has now been translated into Simplified Chinese (language negotiated). [search key: qa-navigation-select]

Working with Time Zones

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 18:00:01 GMT

New W3C Working Group Note Based on discussions with the XQuery and XSL Working Groups, the Internationalization Core Working Group has released Working with Time Zones as a Working Group Note. The document discusses problems encountered when working with the date, time, and dateTime values from XML Schema when time zone offsets are included or omitted. It offers guidelines for working with field-based dates and times, for working with date and time values that require a time zone, and for comparing times. [search key: timezone]

Setting encoding in web authoring applications

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 13:33:00 GMT

Updated FAQ article This article answers the question: "How do I set character encoding in my web authoring applications?" The subsection entitled "Microsoft Notepad & WordPad 2000/XP (Windows)" was split into two, and substantive improvements were made to the text in each. [search key: qa-setting-encoding-in-applications]

Web Services Internationalization (WS-I18N)

Thu, 15 Sep 2005 10:00:01 GMT

New First Working Draft The Internationalization Core Working Group has released the First Public Working Draft of Web Services Internationalization (WS-I18N). The draft enhances SOAP messaging for locale and international preference negotiation and defines a locale policy. Without using Accept-Language and user identity, implementations can handle the requester's locale, locale policy and language preference. [search key: ws-i18n]

Changing (X)HTML page encoding to UTF-8

Fri, 26 Aug 2005 14:00:00 GMT

New FAQ-based article How do I change the encoding of my (X)HTML pages to UTF-8? [search key: qa-changing-encoding]

FAQ: Upgrading from language-specific legacy encoding to Unicode encoding

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 18:40:00 GMT

New article for REVIEW Comments are being sought on this article prior to final release. Please send any comments to www-international@w3.org. We expect to publish a final version in one to three weeks. This article provides an answer to the question: What should I consider when upgrading my web pages from legacy encoding to Unicode encoding?

W3C Participates in 28th Internationalization & Unicode Conference

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 14:17:00 GMT

News item The 28th Internationalization & Unicode Conference will be held 7-9 September in Orlando, Florida, USA. Team members Richard Ishida and Felix Sasaki will present several papers at this premier technical conference worldwide for software and Web internationalization. Read about Unicode and the W3C Internationalization Activity.

FAQ: Tags em outros idiomas

Mon, 22 Aug 2005 14:40:00 GMT

New translation Thanks to Joildo Santos, the FAQ article "Non-English tags" has now been translated into Brazilian Portuguese (language negotiated). [search key: qa-non-eng-tags]

FAQ: Vérifier les en-têtes HTTP

Mon, 22 Aug 2005 14:10:00 GMT

New translation Thanks to Steve Frécinaux, the FAQ article "Checking HTTP Headers" has now been translated into French (language negotiated). [search key: qa-headers-charset]

Article: xml:lang in XML document schemas

Wed, 17 Aug 2005 16:04:00 GMT

New article for REVIEW Comments are being sought on this article prior to final release. Please send any comments to www-international@w3.org. We expect to publish a final version in one to three weeks. This article provides an answer to the question: When should I use xml:lang and when should I define my own element or attribute for passing language values in an XML document schema (DTD)?

FAQ: Verificando o cabeçalho HTTP

Tue, 16 Aug 2005 16:10:00 GMT

New translation Thanks to Maurício Samy Silva, the FAQ article "Checking HTTP Headers" has now been translated into Brazilian Portuguese (language negotiated). [search key: qa-headers-charset]

FAQ: Quem usa Unicode?

Tue, 16Aug 2005 16:15:00 GMT

New translation Thanks to Maurício Samy Silva, the FAQ article "Who uses Unicode?" has now been translated into Brazilian Portuguese (language negotiated). [search key: qa-who-uses-unicode]

Tutorial: Creating Bidi XHTML/HTML Pages

Wed, 15 Aug 2005 18:04:00 GMT

New tutorial for REVIEW Comments are being sought on this article prior to final release. Please send any comments to www-international@w3.org. We expect to publish a final version in one to three weeks. By following this tutorial you should be able to: create effective XHTML and HTML pages containing text written in the Arabic or Hebrew scripts, understand the basics of how the Unicode bidirectional algorithm works, so that you can understand why bidirectional text behaves the way it does, and how to work around problems, take decisions about the appropriateness of alternatives to markup. [search key: tutorial-bidi-xhtml]

FAQ: Changing page encoding to UTF-8

Wed, 11 Aug 2005 18:04:00 GMT

New article for REVIEW Comments are being sought on this article prior to final release. Please send any comments to www-international@w3.org. We expect to publish a final version in one to two weeks. The article, written for internationalization novices, aims to answer the question: "How do I change the encoding of my (X)HTML pages to UTF-8?" [search key: changing-encoding]

Internationalization and Localization Markup Requirements

Sat, 06 Aug 2005 00:00:01 GMT

New First Working Draft The Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Working Group has released the First Public Working Draft of Internationalization and Localization Markup Requirements. Addressing the main challenges and issues of internationalizing and localizing XML documents, the draft outlines requirements for vocabulary, guidelines and mechanisms to meet the needs of content authors, developers and the localization community. [search key: itsreq]

Using character entities and NCRs

Fri, 05 Aug 2005 17:55:00 GMT

New FAQ-based article What are character entities and NCRs, and when should I use them? [search key: qa-escapes]

Tutorial: l'uso dell'informazione sulla lingua in XHTML, HTML e CSS

Fri, 05 Aug 2005 10:00:00 GMT

Updated translation Thanks to Pasquale Popolizio, Italian slide text has been added to the language-negotiated Italian translation of the tutorial "Using language information in XHTML, HTML and CSS". [search key: tutorial-lang]

Codificar idiomas com duas ou três letras

Fri, 05 Aug 2005 09:10:00 GMT

New translation Thanks to Maurício Samy Silva, the FAQ article "Two-letter or three-letter language codes" has now been translated into Brazilian Portuguese (language negotiated). [search key: qa-lang-2or3]

Styling using the lang attribute

Thu, 04 Aug 2005 18:42:00 GMT

Updated FAQ article This article answers the question: "What is the most appropriate way to associate CSS styles with text in a particular language in a multilingual XHTML/HTML document?" Much of the text has been changed or rearranged. A new subsection was added to explain how :lang recognizes language information declared higher up the hierarchy, unlike the other selectors. Links were also added to newly improved tests and a new results page relating to the use of the selectors described here. [search key: qa-css-lang]

Configurando as preferências de idioma no navegador

Thu, 04 Aug 2005 09:10:00 GMT

New translation Thanks to Maurício Samy Silva, the FAQ article "Setting language preferences in a browser" has now been translated into Brazilian Portuguese (language negotiated). [search key: qa-lang-priorities]

Test results: Language-dependent styling

Wed, 03 Aug 2005 16:00:00 GMT

New test results page This page summarises results for a series of tests aimed at discovering which selectors work for styling CSS by language. [search key: css-lang]

HTML, XHTML, XML e os códigos de controle

Wed, 03 Aug 2005 09:33:00 GMT

New translation Thanks to Maurício Samy Silva, the FAQ article "HTML, XHTML, XML and Control Codes" has now been translated into Brazilian Portuguese (language negotiated). [search key: qa-controls]

Language dependent styling tests

Tues, 02 Aug 2005 08:15:00 GMT

Updated tests The 3 tests were rationalised, and a section was added to each page that tests the applicability of stylesheet rules when language information is inherited from an element further up the hierarchy, rather than declared on the element in question. This is a key distinguishing feature between behaviour of :lang and [lang |= '...']. [search key: test-css-lang]

Using language information in XHTML, HTML and CSS

Tues, 02 Aug 2005 08:45:00 GMT

Updated tutorial Information about declaration of language has been removed to a separate tutorial, Declaring Language in XHTML and HTML (Draft). This tutorial now focuses on uses of language information in documents. The tutorial has also been adapted to the latest format for tutorials, and, thanks to Pasquale Popolizio, the Italian translation has been revised to support the changes. (This is the first translation of a tutorial in this format.) [search key: tutorial-lang]

Usando select para lincar à um conteúdo específico

Thu, 28 Jul 2005 16:30:00 GMT

New translation Thanks to Maurício Samy Silva, the article "Using select to Link to Localized Content" has now been translated into Brazilian Portuguese (language negotiated). [search key: qa-navigation-select]

Using to Link to Localized Content

Wed, 06 Jul 2005 16:35:00 GMT

New article for REVIEW Comments are being sought on this article prior to final release. Please send any comments to www-international@w3.org. We expect to publish a final version in one to two weeks. The article makes suggestions with regard to best practices for using pull-down menus based on the select element to direct visitors to localized content. [search key: qa-navigation-select]

Serving XHTML 1.0

Mon, 04 Jul 2005 00:11:12 GMT

Updated article Improved the code in the example in the section "'Standards' vs 'Quirks' modes". This was applied to the English, Romanian and Swedish versions of the document. The new French version already has it. [search key: serving-xhtml]

Servir du XHTML 1.0

Mon, 04 Jul 2005 00:11:10 GMT

New translation Thanks to Sébastien Guillon, the article "Serving XHTML 1.0" has now been translated into French (language negotiated). [search key: serving-xhtml]

What you need to know about the bidi algorithm and inline markup

Thu, 30 Jun 2005 00:00:01 GMT

Updated article Reorganized and amplified the following sections to improve clarity: Directional context Neutral characters One paragraph was moved from the section 'Directional typing of characters'. [search key: inline-bidi-markup]

Ruby Markup and Styling

Wed, 24 June 2005 18:00:00 GMT

New tutorial for REVIEW This tutorial (originally developed for the WWW2005 Conference in Chiba, Japan) is available for review. We are looking to release a stable version on the site in about one to two week's time. Please take a look, and if you have any comments send them to www-international@w3.org. Some work has been done at the W3C on enabling support for ruby text in XHTML 1.1. This is especially useful for Japanese and other East Asian content. It allows small annotations to be rendered above and below base text, such as is needed to support Japanese furigana. This tutorial will introduce you to the basic mechanisms, and discuss the current state of the art with regards to ruby support [search key: ruby]

W3C at Pan-African Localization Workshop

Fri, 24 Jun 2005 12:30:01 GMT

Presentation slides available Richard Ishida delivered a keynote talk entitled Internationalizing the Web for Africa at the Pan-African Localization Workshop in Casablanca, 13-15 June. The workshop, organized by the IDRC, brought together participants from 12 African countries and experts from other continents to discuss how to better localize ICT into indigenous languages and scripts so as to promote rapid and fair development in Africa. There were also visits from the Moroccan Minister for General and Economic Affairs and the Canadian Ambassador to Morocco, who both expressed support for its aims. The workshop sets a foundation for future networking and information sharing via the development of a collaborative, Web-based site which will provide useful information to and support the initiatives of a pan-African community of localizers.

Servirea Documentelor XHTML 1.0

Fri, 15 Apr 2005 00:11:17 GMT

New translation Thanks to Andrei Stanescu, the article "Serving XHTML 1.0" has now been translated into Romanian (language negotiated). [search key: serving-xhtml]

Changes in the W3C Internationalization Team

Fri, 01 Apr 2005 00:00:01 GMT

New W3C Team line-up Felix Sasaki joins the W3C Team as of 1 April to work within the Internationalization Activity. Felix will be based in Keio University, in Japan, from the end of April. Felix studied Japanese and Linguistics in Berlin, Nagoya (Japan) and Tokyo. Since 1999 he worked in the Department of Computational Linguistics and Text-technology, at the University of Bielefeld (Germany), where he finished his PhD in 2004. The PhD deals with the integration of heterogenous linguistic resources using XML-based (e.g.linguistic corpora) and RDF-based (e.g. lexica, conceptual models) representations. Felix replaces Martin Dürst, who has left the W3C to take up a post at Aoyama Gakuin University in Japan. We wish Martin success for the future, and thank him for his dedication and hard work in leading the internationalization effort for many years. Richard Ishida now becomes Internationalization Activity Lead.

Ce que vous devez savoir au sujet du bidi et du balisage au sein des blocs

Fri, 25 Feb 2005 00:18:45 GMT

New translation Thanks to Patrick Andries, the article "What you need to know about the bidi algorithm and inline markup" has now been translated into French (language negotiated). (There is also a French PDF version for those who cannot see the Arabic and Hebrew examples correctly.) [search key: inline-bidi-markup]

Techniques index and site search

Thu, 24 Feb 2005 00:00:01 GMT

Web site improvements A techniques index has been added to the W3C Internationalization site. This provides an overview of all current techniques documents. It also provides quick access to a summary of techniques and useful links on a task by task basis. In addition, it is now possible to search within the Internationalization sub-site by typing your search text into the brown box at the top right of pages on the site.

Authoring Techniques for XHTML & HTML Internationalization: Specifying the language of content 1.0

Thu, 24 Feb 2005 15:00:01 GMT

Updated Working Draft Specifying the language of content is useful for a wide number of applications, from linguistically sensitive searching to applying language-specific display properties. In some cases the potential applications for language information are still waiting for implementations to catch up, whereas in others, such as detection of language by voice browsers, it is a necessity today. Marking up language information is something that can and should be done today. Without it, it is not possible to take advantage of any of these applications. This document is one of a series of documents providing HTML authors with techniques for developing internationalized HTML using XHTML 1.0 or HTML 4.01, supported by CSS1, CSS2 and some aspects of CSS3. It focuses specifically on advice about specifying the language of content. It is produced by the Internationalization GEO (Guidelines, Education & Outreach) Working Group of the W3C Internationalization Activity. [search key: html-tech-lang]

Language tags in HTML and XML

Thu, 24 Feb 2005 00:00:01 GMT

Updated article Language tags are used to indicate the language of text in HTML and XML documents, and are also used in HTTP headers, SMIL and SVG switch statements, CSS pseudo-elements, etc. This article describes how to choose values for language tags. The article augments an existing article with information that previously existed in a tutorial. The article title was also changed from "Language tagging in HTML and XML". [search key: language-tags]

Character Model for the World Wide Web Is a W3C Recommendation

Tue, 15 Feb 2005 15:00:01 GMT

New Recommendation The World Wide Web Consortium today released Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0: Fundamentals as a W3C Recommendation. The document allows Web applications to transmit and process the characters of the world's languages. Building on the Universal Character Set defined by Unicode and ISO/IEC 10646, it gives authors of specifications, software developers, and content developers a common reference for text manipulation. Read the press release. [search key: charmod]

An Introduction to Multilingual Web Addresses

Wed, 26 Jan 2005 08:58:01 GMT

Updated article Recent developments enable you to add non-ASCII characters to Web addresses. This article provides a high level introduction to how this works. It is aimed at content authors and general users who want to understand the basics without too many gory technical details. This article was updated to point to the new RFCs, published on 25 Jan 2005, relating to URIs and IRIs. [search key: idn-and-iri]

Internationalized Resource Identifiers (IRIs) becomes RFC 3987

Wed, 26 Jan 2005 08:25:01 GMT

New IETF Proposed Standard W3C announces support for the publication of RFC 3987 Internationalized Resource Identifiers (IRIs) as an IETF Proposed Standard, together with STD 66, RFC 3986, Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax (Press release). IRIs expand the set of characters in URIs from a subset of US-ASCII to the Universal Character Set (Unicode/ISO 10646). They allow content developers and users to identify resources such as Web pages in their own languages. The IRI specification was in part developed by the Internationalization Working Group. The IRI specification will also provide a definitive reference for many W3C specifications - such as XML, RDF, XHTML and SVG. See also the article An Introduction to Multilingual Web Addresses.

FAQ: Establecimiento de las preferencias de idioma en un navegador

Thu, 20 Jan 2005 00:18:45 GMT

New translation Thanks to Carlos Iglesias, the FAQ "Setting language preferences in a browser" has now been translated into Spanish (language negotiated). Some of the examples used were converted for the Spanish audience. [search key: qa-lang-priorities]

An Introduction to Multilingual Web Addresses

Fri, 14 Jan 2005 11:20:01 GMT

New article Recent developments enable you to add non-ASCII characters to Web addresses. This article provides a high level introduction to how this works. It is aimed at content authors and general users who want to understand the basics without too many gory technical details. [search key: idn-and-iri]

W3C Launches Internationalization Activity

Fri, 07 Jan 2005 15:04:01 GMT

3 new Working Groups W3C is pleased to announce the relaunch of the Internationalization Activity. The Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Working Group, chaired by Yves Savourel (Enlaso), is chartered with new work to develop elements and attributes to support document internationalization and localization. Formerly task forces, the Internationalization Core Working Group is chaired by Addison Phillips (webMethods) and the Internationalization Guidelines, Education & Outreach (GEO) Working Group is chaired by Richard Ishida (W3C). All three Working Groups and the Internationalization Interest Group, chaired by Martin Dürst (W3C), are chartered through October 2006. The Working Groups are now looking for additional participants.

An Introduction to Multilingual Web Addresses

Wed, 05 Jan 2005 17:30:00 GMT

New article for 2nd REVIEW Previous review comments have been incorporated into this document, and a number of additional improvements made. We are looking to finally release it in about a week's time. If you have any comments, please send to www-international@w3.org. The article provides a high level introduction to the current situation with regard to the use of multilingual Web addresses (URIs) for linking to resources on the Web. It is aimed at content authors and general users who want to understand the basics without too many gory technical details. [search key: idn-and-iri]

Translation process

Wed, 05 Jan 2005 14:23:01 GMT

Updated page Significant change to 'Version information' section. Instructions now say to put the following note near the top of the page, rather than at the bottom:

This document is a translation. In the case of any discrepancy or errors, the latest English original should be considered authoritative. Original copyright belongs to W3C, as shown below.

The text has also changed.

Translation process

Wed, 05 Jan 2005 00:00:01 GMT

Updated page Improved clarity in several places. Susbtantially changed section 'Changes to the text' to say that translators should send information, rather than add details to the document. Added to section 'Notification of new or updated translations' information about news and RSS feeds, and Ivan's list of translations.

Internationalization position advertised

Tue, 21 Dec 2004 00:00:01 GMT

W3C Team job opportunity W3C has opened a position in Internationalization at Keio University in Japan, because Martin Dürst is leaving the W3C Team at the end of March. For details, see the description and instructions. (For other open positions at W3C, please see the Job Opportunities list. )

FAQ: Who uses Unicode?

Wed, 08 Dec 2004 00:00:01 GMT

Updated FAQ Added 7 additional companies to the list of those who use UTF-8 on their home page. [search key: qa-who-uses-unicode]

FAQ: Att granska HTTP-headers

Mon, 26 Nov 2004 00:00:01 GMT

New translation Thanks to Olle Olsson, the FAQ "Checking HTTP Headers" has now been translated into Swedish (language negotiated). [search key: qa-headers-charset]

FAQ: Att deklarera teckenkodning i CSS

Mon, 23 Nov 2004 00:00:04 GMT

New translation Thanks to Olle Olsson, the FAQ "CSS character encoding declarations" has now been translated into Swedish (language negotiated). [search key: qa-css-charset]

FAQ: Enspråkiga resp. flerspråkiga webbplatser

Mon, 23 Nov 2004 00:00:03 GMT

New translation Thanks to Olle Olsson, the FAQ "Monolingual vs. multilingual Web sites" has now been translated into Swedish (language negotiated). [search key: qa-mono-multilingual]

FAQ: Internationella & flerspråkiga webbplatser

Mon, 22 Nov 2004 00:00:03 GMT

New translation Thanks to Olle Olsson, the FAQ "International & multilingual web sites" has now been translated into Swedish (language negotiated). [search key: qa-international-multilingual]

FAQ: Att ange 'charset'-information i .htaccess

Mon, 22 Nov 2004 00:00:02 GMT

New translation Thanks to Olle Olsson, the FAQ "Setting 'charset' information in .htaccess" has now been translated into Swedish (language negotiated). [search key: qa-htaccess-charset]

FAQ: Dokuments teckenuppsättning

Mon, 22 Nov 2004 00:00:01 GMT

New translation Thanks to Olle Olsson, the FAQ "Document character set" has now been translated into Swedish (language negotiated). [search key: qa-doc-charset]

Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0: Resource Identifiers

Mon, 22 Nov 2004 00:00:02 GMT

New Candidate Recommendation A new Character Model document dealing with Resource Identifiers was published as a Candidate Recommendation today. The content of this document was previously part of the Character Model Fundamentals document. It is an architectural specification providing authors of specifications, software developers, and content developers with a common reference for the use of resource identifiers building on the Universal Character Set, defined jointly by the Unicode Standard and ISO/IEC 10646. Editors: Martin J. Dürst, François Yergeau, Richard Ishida, Misha Wolf, Tex Texin [search key: charmod-resid]

Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0: Fundamentals

Mon, 22 Nov 2004 00:00:01 GMT

New Proposed Recommendation The Character Model Fundamentals document moved to Proposed Recommendation status today. This is an architectural specification providing authors of specifications, software developers, and content developers with a common reference for interoperable text manipulation on the World Wide Web, building on the Universal Character Set, defined jointly by the Unicode Standard and ISO/IEC 10646. Topics addressed include use of the terms 'character', 'encoding' and 'string', a reference processing model, choice and identification of character encodings, character escaping, and string indexing. Editors: Martin J. Dürst, François Yergeau, Richard Ishida, Misha Wolf, Tex Texin [search key: charmod]

Requirements for the Internationalization of Web Services

Tue, 16 Nov 2004 00:00:01 GMT

New Working Group Note Developed to help achieve worldwide usability for Web services, these requirements address the way internationalization options are exposed in Web services definitions, descriptions, messages, and discovery mechanisms. Editor: Addison Phillips [search key: ws-i18n-req]

Defining Localization, Internationalization & Globalization

Fri, 12 Nov 2004 00:00:01 GMT

Withdrawn article This article has been temporarily withdrawn pending additional work. [search key: qa-i18n]

Teckenkodningar

Thu, 11 Nov 2004 00:00:00 GMT

New translation Thanks to Olle Olsson, there is now a language-negotiated Swedish translation available of the article "Character encodings". [search key: O-charset]

An Introduction to Multilingual Web Addresses

Wed, 10 Nov 2004 00:00:00 GMT

New article for REVIEW Comments are being sought on this article prior to final release. Please send any comments to www-international@w3.org. The article provides a high level introduction to the current situation with regard to the use of multilingual Web addresses (URIs) for linking to resources on the Web. It tries to avoid getting too technical, although it does attempt to explain some of the implementation detail in a simple fashion. [search key: idn-and-iri]

I18N Tests: Resource identifiers 3

Wed, 10 Nov 2004 00:00:00 GMT

New test Tests on this page seek to determine whether a user agent can handle an International Resource Identifier (IRI) in a link or address bar. This page is encoded in Shift-JIS, but the link points to a resource whose filename is encoded in UTF-8. [search key: sec-iri-3]

Richard Ishida and Addison Phillips to speak at Localization World, San Francisco

Mon, 01 Nov 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Upcoming presentations Richard Ishida will present W3C: SOAP to OWL, and hot Web schemas and Addison Phillips Implementing SOAP for Translation Re-use on 16 November, at Localization World in San Francisco, CA, USA.

Tests overhauled

Tue, 26 Oct 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Updated tests Most of the Internationalization tests at http://www.w3.org/International/tests/ have been improved in the light of lessons learned over recent months. Changes include the addition of explanatory information at the beginning of each test page that describes what is being tested and provides useful notes. Presentation has been standardized and improved. There have also been a small number of changes made to existing test pages, and a small number of new tests have been added. Finally, links to the results pages have been added to the test overview page.

New change logs and RSS feeds available

Wed, 27 Oct 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Site improvements This page lists updates to resources and publications on the W3C International site, as well as news items. Items are in chronological order, with the newest at the top. There are also a number of additional lists generated from this one according to categories assigned to news items. They currently include: announcements: things that typically make their way to the the I18N home page. It includes information about general events and also about newly published resources of all types. It typically does not include descriptions of changes to existing documents, items for review only, etc. resources: news about new and updated resource pages (articles, FAQs, tutorials, publications, and tests) on the W3C Internationalization site. It repeats the document-related information from the Announcements list and all of the Changes list. It does not include announcements about events, nor items for review only. reviews: resources (articles, FAQs, tutorials, publications, and tests) that have been made available in draft form for review, prior to formal publication. Comments about such items should normally be sent to www-international@w3.org. changes: descriptions of changes made to resource pages (articles, FAQs, tutorials, and tests) on the W3C Internationalization site. This information is not usually posted on the home page. Of use as a reference if you want to learn about changes in a new version of a given page. May also be particularly interesting for translators who want to be informed when a document they translated has changed. translations: news exclusively about new and updated translations of material on the W3C Internationalization site. This information will not usually appear on other lists. Useful for non-English speakers. tests: a list solely dedicated to information about I18N tests - new or updated. Good for testers who want to keep up with latest I18N developments. Each of the logs provided comes with a link to an RSS 2.0 feed, so that you can be notified of new items. For example, non-native English speakers or translators may wish to subscribe to the translations RSS feed, to know when new translations are produced. If you would like to see additional categories, please contact Richard Ishida at ishida @ w3.org.

Defining Localization, Internationalization & Globalization

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 00:00:00 GMT

New article How do you define localization, internationalization and globalization? How are these concepts related? [search key: qa-i18n]

Authoring Techniques for XHTML & HTML Internationalization: Specifying the language of content 1.0

Fri, 15 Oct 2004 00:00:00 GMT

New interim Working Draft The GEO Task Force of the Internationalization WG has published this new Working Draft to solicit comments prior to publication as a WG Note. Please read and send any comments to www-i18n-comments@w3.org. The document provides HTML authors with techniques for developing internationalized HTML using XHTML 1.0, HTML 4.01, or XHTML 1.1, supported by CSS1, CSS2 and some aspects of CSS3. This document focuses specifically on advice about specifying the language of content. [search key: html-tech-lang]

White space and ideographic text

Thu, 14 Oct 2004 00:00:00 GMT

New tests for review These tests explore how white space is handled in relation to ideographic text, based on assumptions in CSS 2.1. Please send any comments before I add them formally to the site. White space 1 White space 2 See also the preliminary results and conclusions. [search key: sec-whitespace]

Inline bidi markup 2

Mon, 04 Oct 2004 00:00:00 GMT

New test for review This is one of a set of pages that examine how inline bidirectional text is handled by a user agent. Tests on this page seek to determine whether directionality set in the document is carried through to window title and tooltip display. The tester should check two things: whether the letters in a single word run in the right direction (this checks the application of the bidirectional algorithm, using character directional semantics); and whether the words are in the appropriate order (this checks the application of directional context set by the dir attribute). [search key: sec-inline-bidi] See also the preliminary results and conclusions.

Tutorial: l'uso dell'informazione sulla lingua in XHTML, HTML e CSS

Wed, 01 Sep 2004 00:00:00 GMT

New translation Thanks to Pasquale Popolizio, there is now a language-negotiated Italian translation available of the tutorial "Using language information in XHTML, HTML and CSS". [search key: tutorial-lang]

Using link for alternative language versions of document

Wed, 11 Aug 2004 00:00:00 GMT

New test This test seeks to establish whether and how a user agent supports the use of the link element to allow the user to navigate to versions of the current document written in alternative languages. See also the preliminary results and conclusions. [search key: sec-link]

New Draft Charters available for review and comment

Mon, 12 Jul 2004 00:00:00 GMT

New charters The Internationalization Working Group has made available draft charters for the next charter period beginning later this year. Note that these are still in development. There are two charters: one for the Internationalization Core WG, that will continue the work of the current Core and Web Services Task Forces; and a charter for a new Internationalization GEO (Guidelines, Education & Outreach) WG that will continue and expand the current work of the current GEO Task Force. Comments on these proposed charters should be sent to www-international@w3.org.

FAQ: 文書文字集合

Fri, 02 Jul 2004 00:03:00 GMT

New translation Thanks to Masayasu Ishikawa, the FAQ 'Document character set' is now available in Japanese. [search key: qa-doc-charset]

Why use the language attribute?

Fri, 02 Jul 2004 00:02:00 GMT

New FAQ-based article Why should I use the language attribute in web pages? [search key: qa-lang-why]

Using HTTP and meta for language information

Fri, 02 Jul 2004 00:01:00 GMT

New FAQ-based article Should I declare the language of my XHTML document using a language attribute, the Content-Language HTTP header, or a meta element? [search key: qa-http-and-lang]

Setting 'charset' information in .htaccess

Fri, 02 Jul 2004 00:00:00 GMT

New FAQ-based article How do I use .htaccess directives on an Apache server to serve files with a specific encoding? [search key: qa-htaccess-charset]

文字符号化

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 00:00:00 GMT

New translation Thanks to Masayasu Ishikawa, the article 'Character Encodings' is now available in Japanese. [search key: O-charset]

Escapes

Wed, 26 May 2004 00:01:00 GMT

New tests These two tests examine the recognition of escapes in XHTML. [search key: sec-escapes]

Hreflang content generation

Wed, 26 May 2004 00:00:00 GMT

New test This test seeks to establish whether a user agent supports use of the hreflang attribute plus CSS to display information about the language of a link target. It does not test whether the hreflang value is used when viewing the target document. See also the preliminary results and conclusions. [search key: sec-hreflang-style]

Web Services Internationalization Usage Scenarios

Wed, 12 May 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Updated Working Draft The Web Services Task Force of the Internationalization Working Group has released an updated Working Draft of Web Services Internationalization Usage Scenarios with additional guidance for implementers of Web service technologies. The document examines how language, culture and related issues interact with Web services architecture and technology. Comments are welcome on this draft. [search key: ws-i18n-scenarios]

Authoring Techniques for HTML/XHTML Internationalization: 3 First Working Drafts issued

Mon, 10 May 2004 00:00:00 GMT

New First Working Drafts The GEO Task Force of the Internationalization Working Group has published three First Working Drafts under the general title of Authoring Techniques for HTML/XHTML Internationalization. They are Characters and Encodings 1.0, Specifying the language of content 1.0 and Handling Bidirectional Text 1.0. These new documents have been separated out from what was previously a single document and updated. They provide HTML authors with techniques for developing internationalized HTML using XHTML 1.0, XHTML 1.1, or HTML 4.01, supported by CSS1, CSS2 and some aspects of CSS3.

New IRI Draft published: Last Call issued

Sun, 09 May 2004 00:00:00 GMT

New First Working Drafts The Internationalization Working Group has published a new Internet Draft of Internationalized Resource Identifiers (IRIs). A two-week last call on the public-iri@w3.org mailing list was announced, which ends May 23, 2004. IRIs are similar to URIs, but with the restriction to US-ASCII removed, and with a mapping to URIs.

Richard Ishida addresses UK Usability Professionals Association

Thu, 22 Apr 2004 00:00:00 GMT

Presentation Richard Ishida, team contact for the W3C Internationalization Working Group, presented as part of a panel discussion to a meeting of the UK Usability Professionals Association, 22 April, in London. Title of his talk: Don’t Blame the Localizers! [PDF 715Kb]. The talk presented some examples of how designers and developers shoulder much responsibility in enabling internationalization of products.

Att leverera XHTML 1.0

Tue, 20 Apr 2004 00:00:00 GMT

New translation Thanks to Olle Olsson, the article 'Serving XHTML 1.0' is now available in Swedish. [search key: serving-xhtml]

Using language information in XHTML, HTML and CSS

Wed, 07 Apr 2004 00:00:00 GMT

New tutorial Covers: guidelines for declaring the language of documents and text how to specify language attribute values applicability of the language tag to apply language-specific CSS styling a brief introduction to the concept of server-based language negotiation [search key: tutorial-lang]

Character sets & encodings in XHTML, HTML and CSS

Fri, 19 Mar 2004 00:00:00 GMT

New tutorial Covers: choosing an encoding for XHTML/HTML documents when and how to declare the character encoding (charset) for documents using XHTML/HTML and CSS aspects of serving and coding XHTML/HTML files that affect the above when and how to use escapes and entities to represent characters [search key: tutorial-char-enc]

When to use language negotiation

Thu, 26 Feb 2004 00:00:00 GMT

New tutorial When is it appropriate, or not, to use language negotiation? (available in English and French) [search key: qa-when-lang-neg]

Display capabilities

Fri, 06 Feb 2004 00:00:00 GMT

New FAQ-based article Do I need to worry because display capabilities (screen sizes, number of colors, etc.) of computers vary in other countries? [search key: qa-display-capabilities]

Apache MultiViews language negotiation set up

Wed, 14 Jan 2004 00:00:00 GMT

New FAQ-based article How do I use the MultiViews approach on an Apache Web server to automatically serve resources in the language requested by an HTTP request? [search key: qa-apache-lang-neg]