Michael Hartle wrote:
Marc Portier wrote:

<message key="prompt.name"><wi:accesskey>N</wi:accesskey>ame:</message>

? hm, I don't actually don't know if current i18n transformer is supporting mixed content-model messages, anyone?

also this approach would require us however to make some upfront suggestions on the order of template and i18n transformer? (and thus reflect that in the namespace-prefix in the message)

biggest plus for this approach to me seems to be that you are assuring that the access-key _is_ part of the label, regardless of the language?


Just a wild thought, this might lead to web applications that have different hotkeys for the same task (or behave differently for the same hotkey used) depending on the language they are i18n-ed to ? Just imagine how difficult using the "vi" would become (in terms of documentation, explaining, accidential changes of i18n configuration for a user, etc) if all shortcuts (command "dd" => "delete a line") would turn out to be different in other languages, eg. German (command "lösche eine Zeile" => "lz" ??).


I agree, but IMHO you are talking about two different things here...


1/ accesskey: visual clues with underscores that indicate fast-access on screens you are (maybe) seeing for the first time

2/ command-shortcuts: key-strokes that replace the need for diving through a menu and function as some kind of macro-triggers

see, if I use MS Word in the dutch version then saving a file through the access-keys of the menu become ALT-B-B (bestand -> bewaren) while the nglish version has ALT-F-S (files -> save)

in both versions the shortcut CTRL-S does the same.
(just like the CTRL-X,C,V are never 'localized')

(since vi was born well before menus emerged, I would consider all of those as of the second type)

This would be counter-intuitive and work against "habitualization", the natural process of turning "compound" tasks requiring thought (which buttons do I have to press now for removing a line) into routine tasks without requiring thought - somewhat similar to what its like to learn driving a car. Jef Raskin has written the very interesting book "The Humane Interface" (ISBN: 0-201-37937-6) on this topic, well worth reading.


taking up your point however, next to the accesskey, we might think about a @shortcut which then needs to be catched by some js-key-event handler


however, I would think of those as being children/attributes of the form rather then of any of the widgets (let alone their labels)

making sense?

-marc=
--
Marc Portier                            http://outerthought.org/
Outerthought - Open Source, Java & XML Competence Support Center
Read my weblog at              http://radio.weblogs.com/0116284/
[EMAIL PROTECTED]                              [EMAIL PROTECTED]



Reply via email to