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Overivew
RCML is a new Windows resource file format that is designed to provide access to more Win32 UI features than existing RC files and solve a number of problems with existing dialog boxes and the existing resource format, most notable with localization and UI design. In addition to the new RCML file format, there is an enhanced version of the DialogBox API that works hand in hand with the RCML file to make use of the enhanced data it contains.Clients
RCML has been designed to address the specific needs of a well-defined set of customers while avoiding the trap of trying to solve everything for everyone. The people whose needs RCML does address are:
Designers have special requirements when it comes to laying out dialogs, here is a synopsis of the design process from a designers point of view.
Microsoft spends about $300 million on localizing our applications. Of the 50% of that cost that is spent on testing, 70% is taken up by testing and fixing cosmetic UI bugs. These are things like the localized text in a control not fitting in the space originally provided when the dialog was designed in another language. These are hard to track and extremely expensive to fix. More importantly, Microsoft has more than 2000 people working on localization (around 1000 FTE's) and in peak periods such as the 6 months to the Office 2000 release, over 3000 people. If the layout of the dialogs was managed correctly, a vast amount of this time and effort would be saved.
Win32 developers face a number of hurdles that are making Win32 applications difficult to develop and achieve the richness of such things as HTML. New platform UI advances are not being easily exposed resulting in a lack of incentive to move to new versions of the operating system. A lot of the functionality being added to the OS today requires the developer to re-write their code to take advantage of it.
The Windows UI Text team ensures that all Windows UI text is consistent with other Microsoft products, complies with the standards in the Windows interface guidelines, and meets localization requirements. UI text writers and editors work cooperatively as a team with program managers, usability testers, developers, and designers to review new product features and to provide feedback on them.
To help individuals with disabilities use computers more easily and effectively, Microsoft developed Active Accessibility. This set of technologies improves the way programs and accessibility aids work together, providing people with disabilities more flexibility in choosing software and accessibility aids.