links to english originals

[André Malo <nd...@perlig.de>]

According to this thread:

<ne...@posting.google.com>
(
  comp.infosystems.www.servers.ms-windows
  Subject: Language problems reading the documentation
)

Should we add a link to the english original on translated documents?
I'd personally say: yes, makes sense. Not only because of negotiation 
problems. The english version is also semantically the original document. 
So a reader might want to read it, when he easily wants to compare it 
with the translation. Translations are not always up to date etc.

This would probably require to add a hint on the filename to the 
document, e.g.

<manualpage filename="upgrading">

Or is there a way to get it automagically from ant?

nd
-- 
my @japh = (sub{q~Just~},sub{q~Another~},sub{q~Perl~},sub{q~Hacker~});
my $japh = q[sub japh { }]; print join       #########################
 [ $japh =~ /{(.)}/] -> [0] => map $_ -> ()  #            André Malo #
=> @japh;                                    # http://www.perlig.de/ #

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Re: links to english originals

[Joshua Slive <jo...@slive.ca>]

André Malo wrote:

> hmm, I think, sitemap.xml is the right place for storing that info.
> 
> <page alternate="de ja ru">...</page>

Not the best xml ;-)  More like <page 
href=""><variant>en</variant><variant>de</variant></page> or something 
like that.  We're supposed to able to avoid parsing strings for spaces 
to get at our data.

> 
> or so. (but doesn't solve the problem...)

It potentially could, but is probably an over-complex solution for the 
problem at hand.  As I said, if the translations start to get large, we 
may want to switch to typemaps pointing at different directories.  Then 
something like this would be very useful.


> But... I don't like JS ;-)

I agree on principal

> I actually would prefer a SSI 

I'd really prefer not to have the parse all the docs for SSI just for 
this little thing.

> or better a post processing
> solution (for example a perl script similiar to expand.pl).

That is a possibility.  I would want to use a proper xml parser 
(possibly from within perl) and not just a search/replace thing.

Anyway, lets think about the problem a little more before we try 
anything.  That way we can hopefully come up with a solution that will 
help us in other areas as well.

You might want to add the idea to STATUS so we don't forget it.

Joshua.


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Re: links to english originals

[André Malo <nd...@perlig.de>]

* Joshua Slive wrote:

> If we wanted to get really fancy, we could have an xml file for each
> document that listed the available variants.  Then that xml file could
> be used both to generate a typemap for negotiation and to provide the
> translation links in each of the files.  This could be something to do
> in the future, but it is probably too big a hassel for right now, given
> the early stage of most of the translations.

hmm, I think, sitemap.xml is the right place for storing that info.

<page alternate="de ja ru">...</page>

or so. (but doesn't solve the problem...)

> So my suggestion is:
> 
> 1. See if we can develop a very short and simple bit of javascript to
> provide this link.  (Essentially just do s/\..*\.html$/\.en\.html/ or
> whatever.)
>
> 2. If not, we can add the extra tag.  It just seems silly to need to
> hard-code the filename into the file.
> 

I've attached a patch for including a JS and a corresponding CSS. This
should work in every browser with JS 1.0 support. A working example is
here:

<http://cvs.apache.org/~nd/manual/upgrading.html.de>

But... I don't like JS ;-)
I actually would prefer a SSI or better a post processing
solution (for example a perl script similiar to expand.pl).

and yes, you're right, hardcoding the filename should be the last
choice.

nd
-- 
If God intended people to be naked, they would be born that way.
  -- Oscar Wilde

Re: links to english originals

[Joshua Slive <jo...@slive.ca>]

André Malo wrote:
> Should we add a link to the english original on translated documents?
> I'd personally say: yes, makes sense. Not only because of negotiation 
> problems. The english version is also semantically the original document. 
> So a reader might want to read it, when he easily wants to compare it 
> with the translation. Translations are not always up to date etc.
> 
> This would probably require to add a hint on the filename to the 
> document, e.g.
> 
> <manualpage filename="upgrading">
> 
> Or is there a way to get it automagically from ant?

I think this is a good idea.  Many sites also have links to the various 
translations from the default (english) version (see the PHP docs, for 
example), although this is less important.  It would be nice, in 
general, if we provided an easy way to override the negotiated language 
and choose a specific language.  This would help the large number of 
people who have misconfigured browsers, but it would also be good in 
general, since someone might choose to read the web in general in "de" 
but prefer to read technical documentation in "en" (for example).  I 
don't know any browser that provides good configuration for that kind of 
thing.

If we were using any kind of server-side scripting, this would be a 
trivial thing to do.  But I think we need to stick to static pages for 
now.  Another option is to add just a touch of client-side javascript to 
generate the link.  But I think that would only work for translation -> 
english and not the other way around (because the javascript couldn't 
know what translations are available).

If we wanted to get really fancy, we could have an xml file for each 
document that listed the available variants.  Then that xml file could 
be used both to generate a typemap for negotiation and to provide the 
translation links in each of the files.  This could be something to do 
in the future, but it is probably too big a hassel for right now, given 
the early stage of most of the translations.

So my suggestion is:

1. See if we can develop a very short and simple bit of javascript to 
provide this link.  (Essentially just do s/\..*\.html$/\.en\.html/ or 
whatever.)

2. If not, we can add the extra tag.  It just seems silly to need to 
hard-code the filename into the file.

Joshua.





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