[xliff-tools] XLIFF usage

[Asgeir Frimannsson]

Hi Steve,

I'm not sure if you're referring to the fd.org XLIFF Tools project or XLIFF in 
general, but I'll assume the first. If however, you're referring to XLIFF in 
general, have a look at the XLIFF 1.1 Whitepaper for a good overview of 
XLIFF: 
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/3110/XLIFF-core-whitepaper_1.1-cs.pdf
 
On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 19:01, Stephen Holmes wrote:
> I've read the announcement of the XLIFF Tools Project
> (http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtranslator-list/2005-January/msg00001.html
>) but I must admit to being confused about the ultimate intent of the the
> XLIFF effort.  Is it the intent of this working group to ultimately replace
> the various *nix file formats with XLIFF as a native resource file format
> or is it simply intended to be a round-trip container for use during the
> translation process. 

The overall goal of the XLIFF Tools project is to replace file format X in the 
*Localisation Process* in favour of XLIFF, enabling translators to work 
directly with XLIFF in XLIFF based localisation tools, and not by using 
PO-based editors as in present open source localisation practices. 

The 'XLIFF PO Tools' sub-project is in a process of change at the moment, and 
will probably be re-named to xliffize - providing similar functionality to 
intltool. In other words: xliffize aims to integrate XLIFF in GNU Autotools 
based projects, using XLIFF as the native resource format in favour of PO. 
Check out  http://xliff-tools.freedesktop.org/wiki/Projects/XliffPoTools for 
a diagram of the proposed workflow. Translators will then be able to retrive 
XLIFF files for translation from the repository. Once we've got the Gettext 
resources covered, we can go on implementing support for other file formats 
within this framework. Integrating XLIFF in the build system means that 
developers can use any technology and file formats in their projects, as long 
as they can extract the resources to XLIFF - without affecting the 
localisation process [keeping translators happy]. This is basically the same 
concept as intltool, but they use PO as the native format.

There is also the 'XLIFF Tools Java' sub-project which is a set of round-trip 
filters. 

> Is it also being considered as a translation memory 
> repository for use in the localisation process?
>
> Seriously, how are you folks using it?

I'm not aware of any open source projects (based on Gettext) using XLIFF in 
the localisation process yet. - Much because we don't have any good open 
source XLIFF editors yet.

> I know this may seem to be a naive question, but you'd be amazed at the
> different implementation approaches, opinions,  and thoughts that exist
> out there.

I am amazed :) 

> Looking forward to hearing from you.
>
> Regards
> Steve.

cheers,
asgeir