Action Item on BP9 from Teleconference 8 August 2007

Dear all,

I had an action item (see
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-i18n-its/2007JulSep/0022.html) to
rework the "Why do this" part of BP 9. Please find my suggestion below.

A look at BP 1 furthermore suggested some changes to the BP name and the
"blue" text. Please find my suggestions (starting with New> below as well.

In addition, I was under the impression that some notes for the "How do
this" part might be helpful as well. Please find my suggestions (starting
with New> below as well.

Best regards,
Christian
===
Best Practice 9: Provide xml:id specify unique identifiers

New>Allow localizable elements to be annotated with unique identifiers

Provide a way to assign a unique identifier to localizable elements.

New>Include xml:id in your DTD or schema to allow localizable elements to be
annotated with unique identifiers.

How to do this

Make sure the attribute xml:id, or a different attribute of type ID, is
available, at least, the "paragraph" level, for the elements that contain
translatable text.

NEW>Make sure an attribute which represents a unique identifier is available
at least for all elements that may contain translatable text.
NEW>
NEW>Note: It is highly recommended to name the ID attributes "xml:id", and
follow the rules put forth in [http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-id]. This increases
the interoperability of these identifiers on the Web, and helps to make XML
sub-resource linking robust.
NEW>
NEW>Note: Internal or external declarations in DTDs or XSDs may assist in
declaring and checking the unique identifiers.
NEW>
NEW>Note: Attention should be paid to the lexical forms and attribute value
normalizations described in [http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-id].
NEW>
NEW>Note: Provisions for using a globally unique or even persistent
identifiers (i.e. ones which do not change over) often provide additional
benefits.

Why do this

The reuse of translations during updates is facilitated if changed or
unchanged items can be easily identified.

Identifiers allow translation tools to correctly track an item between
versions or locations. Items which have been deemed to be the same in terms
of identity can be examined for content changes. If no change has taken
place, the potential for reuse of the previous translation is very high.

Change analysis constitutes an extremely powerful productivity tool for
translation when compared to the typical source matching techniques (a.k.a.
translation memory). These techniques simply look for similar source text in
a multilingual database without, most of the time, being able to tell
whether the context of its use is the same.

Identifiers also help to trace texts to their uses. If for example a User
Interface (UI) string has to be corrected, then a unique identifier which is
ease to access from  the UI will enable efficient correction in the
underlying source (e.g. a resource file).

===

Christian Lieske
MultiLingual Technology Solutions (MLT)
SAP Language Services (SLS)
SAP Globalization Services
SAP AG
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Germany
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christian.lieske@sap.com
http://www.sap.com

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