74 lines
3.7 KiB
HTML
74 lines
3.7 KiB
HTML
<html xmlns:mso="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:msdt="uuid:C2F41010-65B3-11d1-A29F-00AA00C14882">
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<head>
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<meta HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
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<meta HTTP-EQUIV="Expires" CONTENT="Tue, 04 May 1999 21:29:02 GMT">
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<title>Localizers</title>
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<link rel="stylesheet" href="rcml.css" type="text/css">
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<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<mso:CustomDocumentProperties>
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<mso:Assigned_x0020_To msdt:dt="string">MarkCarr</mso:Assigned_x0020_To>
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</mso:CustomDocumentProperties>
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</xml><![endif]-->
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</head>
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<body>
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<!-- Martian Text -->
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<table border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 height=39>
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<tr>
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<td><a class="logo" href="http://RCML">RCML</a>
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<span class="logodot">.</span> <span class="logohead"><a href="customers.htm">customers</a>
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</span>
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<span class="logodot">.</span> <span class="logohead">Localizers </span></td>
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</tr>
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</table>
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<hr>
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<!-- Site Directory -->
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<p><span class="section">Localizers</span>
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<p>Microsoft spends about $300 million on localizing our applications. Of the
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50% of that cost that is spent on testing, 70% is taken up by testing and fixing
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cosmetic UI bugs. These are things like the localized text in a control not
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fitting in the space originally provided when the dialog was designed in another
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language. These are hard to track and extremely expensive to fix. More
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importantly, Microsoft has more than 2000 people working on localization (around
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1000 FTE's) and in peak periods such as the 6 months to the Office 2000 release,
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over 3000 people. If the layout of the dialogs was managed correctly, a vast
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amount of this time and effort would be saved. </p>
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<p>Localization also introduces a class of functional bugs due to words being
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localized that should not have been. A good example here is a file open control
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containing the file mask “*.doc”. Obviously in this case, the “*.doc”
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should not be translated as it will cause programmatic errors.</p>
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<p><span class="section">How does RCML address
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Localizers needs?</span>
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<p>In order to solve the most common localization problem of the localized text
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being larger than the original control and thus, being clipped (i.e. text
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running off the end), the dialog loader will automatically resize the controls
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at load time, to ensure the text fits without clipping. The dialog will be
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automatically resized intelligently to allow the expanded controls to fit
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without throwing off the rest of the dialog.</p>
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<p>Following some research and development work by the internal localization
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tools group, the localization teams are providing a schema known as GML
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(Globalization Markup Language), which is a set of XML tags that RCML will
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support. The GML spec will provide information to the localizing
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tools such as what text should be localized and what should not. In addition, it
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will be possible to insert comments in with the RCML that are used by the
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localizers to make notes on specific areas, which will be ignored by the loader.</p>
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<p>On going discussions with the localization teams will ensure that as RCML is
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developed and extended such that their needs will be taken in to account as much as
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possible.</p>
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<p class="section">
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More info
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<p>
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Curious about the localization process? Look here: <font SIZE="2"><a href="http://mste/interface/issue12/home.asp">http://mste/interface/issue12/home.asp</a></font>
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<hr>
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<p>
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<font FACE="Arial" SIZE="2">If you have any more needs, or wish
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to debate the above, <a href="mailto:rcml@microsoft.com?subject=RCML%20:%20Localizers%20Requests">click
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here</a><p>
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</body>
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</html>
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