Subject: Re: Multilingual DocBook documents... From: Pierre Mai <dent@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: 22 Feb 1998 13:24:40 +0100 |
>>>>> "NW" == Norman Walsh <norm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: NW> Hello, In some private correspondence, I was reminded that NW> DocBook has a LANG attribute on most elements, so shouldn't NW> the choice of language really be document based not stylesheet NW> based? Instead of selecting a language by modifying the NW> stylesheet, shouldn't the stylesheet support all languages NW> simultaneously? Wonderful. This is exactly the thing I was looking for, and thought of implementing myself. For background: We are using DocBook as the target format for the automatic generation of analysis reports from our simulation system. The idea is, that the operator provides a skeleton document, which contains all non-automatic text, the document structure, etc. Then the author selects which automatic reports he wants to include in his report, which are then generated via perl (usually results in <table> or <tgroup> elements), and included as external entities in his document. Since we usually have to work with at least german and english versions, we would like to keep them in one document, using the lang attribute. NW> I like the idea and I was able to implement a scheme that NW> satisfies me, but...there are some interesting issues NW> regarding how generated text in a multilingual document should NW> work. NW> Given: NW> <chapter label="1" lang=usen id=foo> ... See <xref NW> linkend=bar>. </chapter> NW> <chapter label="2" lang=dege id=bar> ... See <xref NW> linkend=foo>. </chapter> NW> Should the stylesheet be sensitive to the language of the NW> element linked to: NW> Chapter 1 ... See Kapitel 2 Kapitel 2 ... See Chapter 1 NW> or sensitive to the current language: NW> Chapter 1 ... Chapter 2 Kapitel 2 ... Kapitel 1 Well, for my purposes solution two would suffice, since I would be keeping two "parallel" versions of each chapter. Also I think, that solution two actually does make sense, too. In normal writing, I would normally also use Kapitel in german texts and Chapter in english texts, even if the referred to chapter has a german/english title (It seems more natural to say "For further information, see Chapter 2: Einführung in die Grundlagen der Algebra", rather than "For further information, see Kapitel 2: ...", since even a german chapter is a chapter after all)... NW> The latter is easier, but the former might make more sense. NW> (If we imagine that the chapter xref included the title, and NW> the title of the German chapter was in German, we'd want the NW> xref to format in the German context, yes?) Or should it do NW> something else? NW> And what about the Table of Contents? Sensitive to the NW> language of the components: NW> Chapter 1 ..... 3 Kapitel 2 ..... 19 NW> or sensitive to the LANG attribute on the wrapper around the NW> TOC? Here, too, I'd prefer the second solution, ... NW> Chapter 1 ..... 3 or Kapitel 1 ..... 3 Chapter 2 ..... 19 NW> Kapitel 2 ..... 19 NW> Does anyone want to weigh in with an opinion? (And the NW> opinion that both are useful and the stylesheet should have a NW> configuration option to select the desired result will be NW> frowned upon, even though it may turn out to be the right one NW> ;-) Yes, it would seem to be the only "right" solution, but at least I would be perfectly happy with the "easier" version. I hope my incoherent ramblings might help a little, ... ;) NW> --norm BTW: Thanks again for your wonderful work in maintaining and developing the current style-sheets, your doing great work. I have made some changes for our in-house version (better handling for some elements/features which didn't work), which you might find interesting. I'll try to make some patches with comments, in the near future. Regs, Pierre. -- Pierre Mai <dent@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> http://home.pages.de/~trillian/ "Such is life." -- Fiona in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" (UK/1994) DSSSList info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/dsssl/dssslist
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