BCP Guidelines for XLIFF, WAS: ITS rules for OpenDocument

Just a thought....  When I see helpful XLIFF implementation guidance like Rodolfo's comments in this email, I wonder if there shouldn't be a Best Current Practices (BCP) document to go along with the XLIFF standard.  It occurs to me that there should be someplace where best practices are documented for the benefit of the people who will be implementing XLIFF in one environment or another.

Merle



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> Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:16:46 -0300
> From: rmraya@maxprograms.com
> To: fsasaki@w3.org
> CC: public-i18n-its-ig@w3.org
> Subject: Re: ITS rules for OpenDocument
> 
> 
> On Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:13:00 +0900
> Felix Sasaki <fsasaki@w3.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Felix,
> 
> >     * an implementation of "within text" which was necessary to get the
> >       OpenDocument segmentation right
> 
> Segmentation is set at paragraph level, not sentence level. Is that
> correct?
> 
> >     * a now worky docx file, please check
> >       http://www.w3.org/International/its/its-translate-decorator/example/alice-in-wonderland.docx
> 
> It is fine. Word 2007 can open it.
> 
> >     * the updated content of that file, see
> >       http://www.w3.org/International/its/its-translate-decorator/example/alice-in-wonderland.xml
> >       . Rodolfo, could you use that file to re-generate your XLIFF file
> >       to make comparison easier?
> 
> I used the .docx file to generate a new XLIFF. You can download it from
> 
>    ftp://charmed.maxprograms.com/pub/alice-in-wonderland.docx.xlf
> 
> >     * the re-generated XLIFF files
> >       http://www.w3.org/International/its/its-translate-decorator/example/xliff-file-alice.xml
> >       http://www.w3.org/International/its/its-translate-decorator/example/xliff-file.xml
> 
> Some comments:
> 
> 1) the official extension for XLIFF files is ".xlf". Don't use ".xml"
> 
> 2) use a real language code in the generated XLIFF files. Set it to
> "en" (English) or anything else, but not to "tbd". XLIFF editors are
> able to validate language codes and complain if you use an invalid one.
> 
> 3) In "xliff-file.xml" you declare source-language="en" in the <file>
> element and then use "tbd" in all <source> elements. This is
> inconsistent.
> 
> 4) There are too many inline tags in "xliff-file-alice.xml".  Tags that
> contain the whole segment can, in most cases, be excluded. For example,
> if the whole segment is enclosed in <bold> tags, you can put the tags
> in a skeleton and store clean text in the <source> element. Tags that
> appear before or after the segment and don't affect the text can be
> exluded from the segment too. 
> 
> 5) <ph> element has a required attribute: "id". It is missing in your
> files.
> 
> Best regards,
> Rodolfo
> -- 
> Rodolfo M. Raya <rmraya@maxprograms.com>
> http://www.maxprograms.com
> 

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