[manifest] I18N review in progress

Dear webapps,

The Internationalization Working Group is reviewing [2] your specification "Manifest for web application" per your request [1]. We were unable to complete our review during this week's teleconference. Our next teleconference is scheduled for 5 March, which is your deadline for comments. This note is to let you know that we will have some comments for you.

There are two concerns that I want to note in advance that perhaps you can clarify:

1. There is no localization model or apparently a means of finding out about the availability of different languages of a given app, including alternate icons, names, short names and such. I'm curious as to whether there is an intention to provide this capability? What do authors of localized web applications do?

2. There is no provision for language or bidirectional control for natural language text inside a manifest. For example, you can't tag the name of an app as being in Japanese (necessary for correct font selection by the host environment, for example) or to set the base direction of the name (so that mixed right-to-left and left-to-right text is drawn correctly).

Thanks (for I18N),

Addison

[1] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-international/2015JanMar/0067.html

[2] https://www.w3.org/International/wiki/Review_radar 

Addison Phillips
Globalization Architect (Amazon Lab126)
Chair (W3C I18N WG)

Internationalization is not a feature.
It is an architecture.

Received on Thursday, 26 February 2015 16:55:35 UTC