Hi Nicolas,
I'm glad you took your time to describe the scenario I
couldn't understand. Now I see how a situation like the one
you present can create horrible problems with the current
implementation.
And I think the solution I present would solve that kind of
problems *too*.
Let me explain.
Sunday, October 30, 2005 Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> Like Giuseppe, you assume attributes are "added" the the language tag.
> It is not so. In the current UI, and the UI Giuseppe proposes, language
> is just one attribute. It will be changed just like bold, font or any
> other style attribute.
It *can* be changed. Why this is not a problem? See below.
> I'd have no problems with his proposal if it was indeed only "adding" on
> language, if language "influenced" presentation or any of the many other
> way this has been expressed in the thread. But the truth is the
> separation which is expressed in your words and in Giuseppe's does not
> exist in his proposal.
> You're both relying on the fact people should be careful. People aren't
> careful in real life. You have to give them tools that do not permit
> behaviour you know beforehand is stupid and dangerous.
Now, leaving aside that I would *not* do business with a
company that doesn't have some sort of guidelines and/or
that doesn't ensure that such guidelines are followed (if I
spend money on something, I *expect* that something to be
done as promised, or I'd ask my money back), and the 'stupid
& dangerous'argument would mean you can't give them pens or
scissors because they can poke their eyes out. But this is a
totally different issue, let us see how my proposal would
help in your case.
So you have these beautiful multilingual documents. They
have been translated, and the translators have tagged the
various parts with the appropriate languages. Please note
that whatever the active method is (yours or mine) we *have*
to assume that translators *will* tag the text correctly,
ok? So we can as we assume they do it by my method: they
create a bunch of styles ("French_language",
"English_language") that only set that property, and tag
the text accordingly. With your method they would have this
other method of tagging the text and tag it, same thing (it
is not in this process that my method and yours are
different)
Problems begin when you pass the document back to the
typesetting team, and in their rearrangements, restyling and
what not they inadvertently change the language in the
Default style to Turkish.
What happens to your beloved documents? NOTHING! Why?
because the actual language used is the one of the topmost
style layer ("French_language").
I assume your typesetters know they shouldn't alter the text
(delete parts, add gibberish, white it out so that all pages
come out blank, etc), correct? Well, just the same way you
can tell them to not touch the Whatever_language styles.
If necessary, it could be possible to add extra checks like:
ensuring the language styles are always toplevel, locking
them or whatever, but in the end you cannot create any
mechanism that is totally foolproof. Even a method where
'language' is a property that is handled at a completely
different level can be tampered with. At one moment or the
other you have to trust the operators to do something right,
or not do something wrong: after all, what would prevent
them from doing a "Select all" and then change the language
property, even in a method like yours?
--
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
