26 messages in org.oasis-open.lists.ditaRE: [dita] Cascading of xml:lang attr...| From | Sent On | Attachments |
|---|---|---|
| Su-Laine Yeo | Aug 3, 2010 12:11 pm | |
| Robert D Anderson | Aug 3, 2010 12:33 pm | |
| Su-Laine Yeo | Aug 3, 2010 12:55 pm | |
| Helfinstine, David | Aug 3, 2010 1:33 pm | |
| Su-Laine Yeo | Aug 3, 2010 3:06 pm | |
| Chris Nitchie | Aug 3, 2010 5:49 pm | |
| Helfinstine, David | Aug 4, 2010 6:29 am | |
| Bruce Nevin (bnevin) | Aug 4, 2010 8:08 am | |
| JoAnn Hackos | Aug 4, 2010 1:56 pm | |
| Andrzej Zydron | Aug 5, 2010 1:33 am | |
| Doug Morrison | Aug 5, 2010 1:38 am | |
| Andrzej Zydron | Aug 5, 2010 1:57 am | |
| Doug Morrison | Aug 5, 2010 2:18 am | |
| Bruce Nevin (bnevin) | Aug 5, 2010 8:55 am | |
| brya...@tektronix.com | Aug 5, 2010 11:17 am | |
| Rodolfo M. Raya | Aug 5, 2010 11:52 am | |
| Bruce Nevin (bnevin) | Aug 5, 2010 12:46 pm | |
| Su-Laine Yeo | Aug 6, 2010 12:44 pm | |
| Robert D Anderson | Aug 9, 2010 7:10 am | |
| Grosso, Paul | Aug 9, 2010 7:24 am | |
| Su-Laine Yeo | Aug 26, 2010 6:11 pm | |
| Grosso, Paul | Aug 27, 2010 8:11 am | |
| Bruce Nevin (bnevin) | Aug 27, 2010 8:51 am | |
| Su-Laine Yeo | Aug 27, 2010 4:20 pm | |
| Gershon Joseph (gerjosep) | Aug 29, 2010 10:29 am | |
| Bruce Nevin (bnevin) | Sep 1, 2010 8:13 am |
| Subject: | RE: [dita] Cascading of xml:lang attribute | |
|---|---|---|
| From: | Su-Laine Yeo (su-l...@justsystems.com) | |
| Date: | Aug 3, 2010 3:06:43 pm | |
| List: | org.oasis-open.lists.dita | |
Hi Dave,
For teams which publish primarily in one language, setting a "good" default for
the processor or putting xml:lang in the template is not a big burden. However,
consider a team that publishes in a dozen locales. That team needs to set the
locale parameter for the processor up to a dozen times and get it right each
time. You can automate builds to avoid having to set parameters over and over,
but many adopters do not have automated build processes, especially in the the
early stages of adoption.
The question is whether processors should apply the xml:lang of the primary map
*if that is the only place where xml:lang is defined*. Why should the answer be
no? I'm aware that changing the xml:lang on a map or topic does not change the
language of any other sub-topics or sub-maps. However I don’t see how that
(obvious) fact is relevant to this question.
Cheers, Su-Laine
-----Original Message----- From: Helfinstine, David [mailto:dhel...@ptc.com] Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2010 1:33 PM To: di...@lists.oasis-open.org Cc: Robert D Anderson; Su-Laine Yeo Subject: RE: [dita] Cascading of xml:lang attribute
Greetings,
The xml:lang should be considered an attribute set in each document. There are
other language type attributes like @dir and @translate that are also document
attributes. They also do not cascade from map to map or map to topic or topic to
sub topic, etc. These might be important when processing so it would not
necessarily be xml:lang alone that would need to be considered. As has been
mentioned, changing the xml:lang on a map or topic does not change the language
of any other sub-topics or sub-maps.
The comments regarding setting the xml:lang in every document can be overcome by
setting a good processor default. If the processor default in a French
environment is “fr” then it might be reasonable that the processor default would
be “fr” unless a different xml:lang is encountered in a map or topic. If however
one of the French documents were put into a different language map then the
processor default would probably be set to that language. The French author
would have to remember to put the xml:lang=”fr” in the French topic to keep that
from happening. Having the xml:lang=”fr” on the topic tag would alleviate the
problem in the first place. For those users who use templates, it might be great
to include in the template the xml:lang already set to a decent default value.
That way – no worries!
Before the DITA 1.2 the cascading of attributes was not defined. There was talk
of inheritance in DITA 1.1 and there was the one reference to xml:lang regarding
topicref and the actual topic. But as a whole this topic was not defined rather
than DITA 1.2 being a change to the way they behaved.
Thanks.
- Dave H. Dave Helfinstine DHel...@ptc.com
-----Original Message----- From: Su-Laine Yeo [mailto:su-l...@justsystems.com] Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2010 2:56 PM To: Robert D Anderson Cc: di...@lists.oasis-open.org Subject: RE: [dita] Cascading of xml:lang attribute
Thanks Robert.
We've received some quite strongly-worded comments from DITA users that having
to set xml:lang on every single topic file would be an enormous hassle. For the
case of a mostly-French document that pulls in one English topic, it is
reasonable to ask users to set xml:lang="fr" once on the map, and xml:lang="en"
once on the English topic. However I don't see why we would also require users
to set xml:lang="fr" on every French topic if they want those topics to be
processed in French.
I see this as being a substantial change over the DITA 1.1 spec which adds work
for users, and I can't see the practical benefit.
Su-Laine
-----Original Message----- From: Robert D Anderson [mailto:roba...@us.ibm.com] Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2010 12:33 PM To: Su-Laine Yeo Cc: di...@lists.oasis-open.org Subject: Re: [dita] Cascading of xml:lang attribute
Trying to remember the discussion of this - I believe that your reading of the 1.2 spec is correct.
I think the idea was that the language is a property of the document itself that travels with the document, and cannot be set or reset from above. For example, if you have a map with all French topics, but then reference an existing English topic somewhere else that does not set xml:lang, the fact that you're referencing it from a French map does not make the topic French. Following the spec's recommendation to ensure xml:lang is on the root element of every document helps bypass this issue and any resulting confusion.
Robert D Anderson IBM Authoring Tools Development Chief Architect, DITA Open Toolkit
"Su-Laine Yeo" <su-laine.yeo@jus tsystems.com> To <di...@lists.oasis-open.org> 08/03/2010 03:11 cc PM Subject [dita] Cascading of xml:lang attribute
Hi everyone,
A bug report for the DITA Open Toolkit has raised some interesting discussion:
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=725074&aid=3038532&group_id=132728
Users need to know if they need to set the xml:lang attribute only in their primary map, or for every topic. Developers of processors need to know if processors should look at the map when deciding what locale to use when displaying topics.
Say you have a <note> element in a DITA topic that is referenced by a DITA map. My reading of the DITA 1.1 spec is that language should be determined as follows:
1) Get xml:lang from the <note> element. If xml:lang is not defined there, get it from the closest ancestor within the topic.
2) If xml:lang not defined in an ancestor of <note> within the topic, get it from the <topicref> in the map.
3) If xml:lang not defined in the <topicref>, get it from closest ancestor of the <topicref> within the map.
4) If xml:lang is not defined in any ancestor of the <topicref> within the map, the processor should assume a default value.
However, the draft DITA 1.2 spec contains the sentence “The @xml:lang value does not cascade from one map to another or from a map to a topic”, which seems to imply that the language should be determined as follows:
1) Get xml:lang from the <note> element. If xml:lang is not defined there, get it from the closest ancestor within the topic.
2) If xml:lang not defined in an ancestor of <note> within the topic, the processor should assume a default value.
Is this the intention?
Su-Laine
Su-Laine Yeo Solutions Consultant
JustSystems Canada, Inc. Office: 778-327-6356 sy...@justsystems.com
www.justsystems.com
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