Re: Image or text for 'Internationalization'?

Hello Richard,


At 06:41 04/11/15, Richard Ishida wrote:
 >
 >When I put together the template for FAQs and the like on the
 >/International site, I wasn't sure whether to use a graphic or text for the
 >word "Internationalization" in the top blue area that represents the name
 >of the Activity.  As I'm always working on the site in great haste, I put
 >it in text, intending to make a proper decision later.  I went for text to
 >make translation easier, but by aligning the baseline of the word with the
 >bottom of the blue, managed to produce an obstacle to localization too.

I'm not sure I understand how making it a graphic would solve the
descender problem.

 >If you take the example of http://www.w3.org/International/O-charset you'll
 >see that the Japanese and Swedish translators took a different approach
 >here. One translated it, the other didn't.  Note that one reason for the
 >Swedish decision was that descenders in the Swedish version would descend
 >below the blue space.
 >
 >So I probably ought to change this.  But I have two questions:
 >
 >1. should that title be translated or not?  (maybe the answer is 'it depends')

Yes, it depends. It shouldn't depend on decenders, though.
It should mainly depend on how well established e.g. a translation is,...
For decenders, I think there are the following ways to deal with it:
- Have the decenders stick out. This would have to be tested on various
   browsers. Also, the fact that other links (Publications, FAQs,...
   are just below the text would probably mean some additional changes).
- Have the bottom of the decenders be alligned (in those languages
   where there are descenders).
- Change the overall design so that it's independent of descender issues.
   Overall, the number of different font styles used on the page is on
   the high end, so some streamlining might help there, too.


 >2. should I use a graphic or not? (because it would be easier to translate
 >text - mind you, it wouldn't be that hard to manage a graphic, given the
 >amount of translation we have to deal with)

It's text, so it should use text. I don't see how a graphic would solve
the design (descender) problem.

Aside:
The two links:
http://www.w3.org/International/O-charset.ja
http://www.w3.org/International/O-charset.en

work without problem, but the link
http://www.w3.org/International/O-charset.sv
gives a 406, not acceptable. The first reason for this
is probably that my Accept-Language header says that
I'm okay with Japanese and English, but not with Swedish.
But clicking on a link that explicitly says "Swedish" and
not being able to get to the Swedish page directly is a problem.
My guess is that one way to fix this is to point to the
full file name "O-charset.sv.html". Another may be to change
some server settings.


Another aside:
Title texts such as "The Document Character Set" or "Related links"
get underlined when mousing over them, even though they cannot
be activated (clicked). That was confusing to me, and I guess it
will be confusing to others.


Regards,    Martin.

Received on Monday, 15 November 2004 01:18:03 UTC