Re: Sync languages - HTML

> That depends on whether you require the parallel translations to be in
> separate documents or the same document.
> 
> Having them in the same document makes adding new translations harder
> because the last modify date changes even for unchanged existing
> translations. This is bad for cacheing. It also makes layout harder.

I am concentrating in separate documents.  Some reasons above, but also 
there are more such as, not to send unecessary versions; for example, I 
am only interested in the Spanish version of the Treaty of Rome (big) and 
I received the 12 linguistic versions.  Though the server could break the 
doc, it is an avoidable task.

The "same doc" case would have to be considered also.

> > If possible the solution should take into account the complete
> > "application" of the parallel text. That could mean more than
> > just a single markup construct,
> 
> Yes
> 
> > e.g. The HEAD LINK element may be used to identify the language
> > variants of a particular document. The CLASS attribute on an Anchor or
> > Paragraph could identify an alignment point with a unique ID to mark
> > the common structural elements.
> >
> >  <P ID=3Dp1 CLASS=3Dalignment          <P ID=3Dp1 CLASS=3Dalignment
> >     LANG=3Den_US> ...                    LANG=3Dfr_CA> ...
> 
> My suggestion would be separate parallel documents, each using the
> identical structure and liberal use of matching NAME or preferably ID
> attributes as described by Gary, to allow browsers to present pairs of
> synchronized documents which scroll in lockstep, follow internal
> cross-references in lockstep, and so on.

There are at least two Sync Functions:

 - Linguistic Unit Mark.- The text marked is a Linguistic Unit.  The 
   corresponding Linguistic Units in the other linguistic versions are 
   translations.
   
 - Place Mark.- This is a place in the doc.  The text to the next Place 
   Mark is not a Linguistic Unit.  The some linguistic versions could be 
   incompleted.

Perhpas both functions could be fulfill with only one type of Sync Mark.

If NAME or ID are used, it should be clear which NAME and ID are Sync Marks.

> One option is to use
> 
> LINK REL=translation TITLE="Egalement disponible en Français"

There should be a posibility to place all Relations in a Header doc, by 
opposition to have it in the docs containing the linguistic versions.

Regards
Tomas

Received on Wednesday, 22 January 1997 18:47:17 UTC