Widgets 1.0 Packaging and Configuration: I18N comments...

Dear Webapps WG,

The Internationalization Core WG has reviewed the following document: http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-widgets-20081222/


Here are our comments:

1. In section 7, starting in 7.3 and encompassing each of the text bearing elements that follow, "xml:lang" is defined as an attribute (good!), but the definition refers to "basic language range". I don't believe this is what is intended. The value of xml:lang is a language tag. Ranges are used for selecting which tagged item to display. For example, an item tagged as <name xml:lang="pt"/> might be selected for display in cases where the default locale is "pt-BR". In that example, "pt-BR" is the range and "pt" is the value (tag) matching it.

2. Section 7.4 (Widget) The various language bearing elements such as <name>, <description>, etc. are of the zero-or-one type. However, it is typically better to allow any number of these elements to occur, provided that none share the same xml:lang. This allows for localization (which is part of the point in allowing xml:lang on the element).

3. Section 7.11 (content element). The charset attribute "assumes" UTF-8 if charset is not present. Note that if the encoding isn't UTF-8, this can almost always be detected reliably and an error can be generated (or some other fallback assumed). Probably the best pattern would be:

  - if charset is present, use that encoding
  - if charset is absent, check if it is UTF-8
  - if not UTF-8, assume Cp437 (or ISO 8859-1 if that's more appropriate)

4. Section 7.15 (ITS tags). Thank you for including ITS support and support for Bidi in particular.

Kind Regards (for I18N),

Addison

Addison Phillips
Globalization Architect -- Lab126
Chair -- W3C Internationalization WG

Internationalization is not a feature.
It is an architecture.

Received on Thursday, 29 January 2009 22:56:56 UTC