- From: Tex Texin <tex@i18nguy.com>
- Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 23:36:09 -0500
- To: Andrew Cunningham <andrewc@vicnet.net.au>
- Cc: "RICHARD,FRANCOIS (HP-France,ex1)" <francois.richard@hp.com>, "'jyunker@bytelevel.com'" <jyunker@bytelevel.com>, public-i18n-geo@w3.org
In a way the problem is made worse by our providing a list of languages that the user must select from. It would be much easier if the user simply typed the language name (in unicode) since we can easily match that or provide something close to any candidate names they might type. That changes the problem to one of how do you ask the question "what is your language? Please type it here". For this we need an international standard, either a graphic image of someone speaking, or the modern equivalent of asking someone in radio communications "What's your 10-20?" (Where are you located?). The number scheme works around the world....10-4, 10-20, etc. It might do to show lots of language names and a graphic and a field where people can type in their language... Maybe have some auto complete to reduce the typing. We make everything mousable and sometimes it ends up being harder than if the user were to just type in the info. For example selecting state in the USA from a list of 50 just to get a 2 letter code (which is redundant with the postal code anway!!!) tex Andrew Cunningham wrote: > > Tex Texin wrote: > > > Writing the name of the language in the language is visually very identifiable > > and stands out > > to readers of the language, so works well. > > > > yes it works very well > > > I'd be interested to see what others think a good solution is. > > as to sorting, not overly feasible with mixed scripts, although I've > known a few sites that have sorted on other criteria, eg phonetic value, > so that langauge names are in a somewhat arbitary order based on > pronunciation of the language name. > > Andrew > > -- > Andrew Cunningham > Multilingual Technical Officer > Online Projects Team, Vicnet > State Library of Victoria > 328 Swanston Street > Melbourne VIC 3000 > Australia > > andrewc@vicnet.net.au > > Ph. +61-3-8664-7430 > Fax: +61-3-9639-2175 > > http://www.openroad.net.au/ > http://www.libraries.vic.gov.au/ > http://www.vicnet.net.au/ -- ------------------------------------------------------------- Tex Texin cell: +1 781 789 1898 mailto:Tex@XenCraft.com Xen Master http://www.i18nGuy.com XenCraft http://www.XenCraft.com Making e-Business Work Around the World -------------------------------------------------------------
Received on Tuesday, 18 November 2003 23:38:36 UTC