Translations in XML

Hi,

just wanted to let everyone know that I am currently working out a format for what’s now the resource scripts in XML. You can find a first draft version in revision 174 in the Subversion repository. As you can see, you will have the translations “side-by-side”, which should also make the job of translators easier. Since the encoding of the XML files will be UTF-8, all languages should be just fine, as all natural languages and several artificial languages (such as Klingon) are covered by the Unicode standard of which UTF-8 is one incarnation.

If any of you has ideas for how to improve the current XML format (more additions will follow throughout the next few days), please let me know here in the comment section, via our contact form on the website or in a tracker or the discussion forum at SF.net.

Rationale: it has been increasingly difficult to manage the translations (be it new translations, edits of existing ones by native speakers or changes in the GUI by me). Therefore I was for a while now looking into moving to a more manageable solution that will not require the translator to contact the developer, let alone have the developer “compile” the translation. Of course even with the new system it will be necessary that I include a new language in a future release, but there will be more flexible means of updating languages via the internet and translators will be able to contribute in a very flexible fashion as well.

// Oliver

PS: The XML parser (TinyXML with TinyXPath) will also be used to save/load a scan.