I've read this thread with interest. I had no opinion at all from the beginning. I think the arguments of Giuseppe are more convincing than those of Nicolas.
I don't think the presentation gets mixed with the contents by adding language as a cascading style. And I don't think any attributes added to the language tags later on will affect the translation at all. /$ 2005/10/30, Nicolas Mailhot <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Giuseppe, > > Thank you for this very long explanation, it helped me to understand > your position (not that I didn't understand it before, but it's nice to > be sure). I'll try to put down there why I think you're wrong, if you > still need after this for me to do a line-by-line commentary of your > message I'll do it (but I'll spare the list a very long message for > now). > > Your core assumption seems to be a single person or group controls the > document, and as such they'll be able to agree on several conventions, > the core one in our case being changing the language attribute in a > style is forbidden once the text has been typed (this is where I > challenged you writing if the UI does not block this some people will do > it, and where you replied me you didn't see why one would be as dumb as > do it with his own document). > > This assumption is utterly wrong. > > Companies do not maintain in-house teams of translators. When they have > to produce a multilingual document the translation parts are > subcontracted. Most often they're subcontracted to a translating office > which is supposed to know all the required languages. Actually such a > thing does not exist - the translating company just sub-contracts each > language to a different freelance translator. Forbidding him to talk to > the original customer, as they like to maintain the fiction they're this > big translating office that can do any langage you need (smart customers > accept no such thing exist and work directly with the freelance > translators - it's cheaper and the result will be better, as your > translator can ask you questions when he's not sure of your meaning) > > All the document formatting work is done by one team (in the original > company) which knows next to nothing about language needs. All the > language work is done by other people which know little about formatting > and can not talk to the first team. > > This should not matter as translation is content and formatting is > presentation. Indeed once the translated document is returned by the > translator he may never hear about it again. But the document still > lives. Original company may decide to merge it with other documents it > got. It may decide to reformat it for release on another support. It may > have its graphical charter changed (been bought, bought someone else or > just wants to change its image). In all these cases the company will > just take its multilingual document, dump it on the formatting team, and > ask them to re-style it. The content does not change after all, why > should they spend money again to get translators work on it (and even if > they did spend the money there's a fairly high possibility they'd end up > with a different team than the first time). > > The current OO.o behaviour, and the one you propose, breaks this > content/presentation separation. Styling people can utterly destroy the > langage hinting of a document just by being not careful - and why should > they be careful, langage is not part of their job. By putting language > controls in the presentation parts of OO.o, you actually encourage them > to wreak havoc on this hinting. > > At this point, I don't care what the final solution is. I've proposed > one, better people than me can decide on another. But one thing I'm 100% > sure of - language and presentation must be separated because they are > separated in real life. The internal OO.o plumbing may treat them the > same way, but the OO.o UI must make sure presentation and content > controls are separate and independant, so the people who work with > content and the people who work with formatting can do their job without > making each other life miserable. > > The BIG difference between your proposal and mine, is conditional styles > do not touch language. They do all the fancy formatting you may need, > but the original content is left alone. Which means next time there is a > ยง to add to the document, translators will find a correctly hinted text, > not something messed out by presentation-oriented restyling. > > Regards, > > -- > Nicolas Mailhot > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
