Translating HTML

HTML or webpage markup language oftern occurs in GUI translations.  You will
also see XML - which looks very much liek HTML.  Should you transalte this?
Well that depends.

What not to transalte

Do not translate the actual markers.  HTML consists of tags which indicate the
start and end of a section of text.  This text could be a heading, a paragraph,
a hyperlink or just a piece of text to display in bold:

- 

A heading

-

A paragraph

- A hyperlink - This is normal and this is bold Some markerjust beg to be translated. Such as these: , <center>, <body> Do not be tempted these need to remian in English. </pre><h2>Atribute - which to transalte?</h2><pre>An attribute is avarible assocaiated with a tag. Eg. <body bgcolor=blue>, here bgcolor is an attribute and blue is its value. Attributes, like tags, are never translated. However some values can be transalted. In the example above the value blue should not be translated. There are only a few values that can be transalted: alt - found in the img tag and used to give a tectual description of the picture that will be loaded. title - a text title that pops up when you hover over a URL </pre><h2>Should I change hyperlinks and images?</h2><pre>Although as a translator you shoudl only change the text of the program, you do have complete control over the HTML. This can be used to your advantage if needed. If for example you were translating a manual that refered to an image of the application then you would most likely want to have an image in the users language, rather then explaing to them in their language wusing an English picture. Often however because of the work involved the translation teams will not change images until much later in their efforts. To change the image first you will need to create an image. You cna use ksnapshot or Gimp to create screenshots. Remember to keep the look consistant ie try to use the same theme across all images. Ideally your picture shoudl be the same size as the one it is replacing. Lastly depending on the application you will need to place the file in the correct place so that it will be shown with your translations. What usualy happens is that images are first saught in the language specific directory and if they are not found then they use the English version </pre><h2>Tags that should be transalted</h2><pre>Some things that looks liek tags are not really tags and should be transalted. These would include the following: <Error>, <File not found>, etc How to identify them? If you are an experienced HTML editor you will know which are real immediately. If you are not then use this rule. If its all in lowercase or uppercase then it in more likely that it is a valid Tag. if it combines case most liekly it is not. If it contains any atribute such as <font color=blue> it is definately a tag. </pre> </html> </body>