Thank you for the report.
Internationalization is clearly one of the major next milestones for the
Manifest. As long as it only contains simple properties like "name" or
"icons", i18n is a minor problem because often these properties are
fairly stable across locales - at least, even if we are aware of the
theoretical problem, we did not hear any feedback from developers.
Something they might do is to serve a Manifest depending on HTTP
headers.
However, when the Manifest will start to have more complex values like
maybe a web app description, it will require some i18n of some sort. One
solution we have been thinking about would be based on Mozilla's Open
Web App Manifest, see
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Apps/Build/Manifest#locales
What would you think of this solution on a i18n POV?
Cheers,
-- Mounir
On Thu, 26 Feb 2015, at 16:54, Phillips, Addison wrote:
> Dear webapps,
>
> The Internationalization Working Group is reviewing [2] your
> specification "Manifest for web application" per your request [1]. We
> were unable to complete our review during this week's teleconference. Our
> next teleconference is scheduled for 5 March, which is your deadline for
> comments. This note is to let you know that we will have some comments
> for you.
>
> There are two concerns that I want to note in advance that perhaps you
> can clarify:
>
> 1. There is no localization model or apparently a means of finding out
> about the availability of different languages of a given app, including
> alternate icons, names, short names and such. I'm curious as to whether
> there is an intention to provide this capability? What do authors of
> localized web applications do?
>
> 2. There is no provision for language or bidirectional control for
> natural language text inside a manifest. For example, you can't tag the
> name of an app as being in Japanese (necessary for correct font selection
> by the host environment, for example) or to set the base direction of the
> name (so that mixed right-to-left and left-to-right text is drawn
> correctly).
>
> Thanks (for I18N),
>
> Addison
>
> [1]
> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-international/2015JanMar/0067.html
> [2] https://www.w3.org/International/wiki/Review_radar
>
> Addison Phillips
> Globalization Architect (Amazon Lab126)
> Chair (W3C I18N WG)
>
> Internationalization is not a feature.
> It is an architecture.
>
