Multilingual editing

Date	2008/08/13
Contact(s)	fxprunayre
Last edited	Timestamp
Status	draft
Assigned to release	to be determined
Resources	Resource available

Overview

Adding the support for multilingual metadatas. For ISO based standards, all the gco:CharacterString elements and their translation can be stored in GeoNetwork. This also allows editing mulitilingual metadatas. Add multilingual metadata support in view mode and editing

Proposal Type

• Type: GUI Change, Module Change
• App: GeoNetwork
• Module: SchemaLoader, Data Manager, Metadata Import, Lucene Index, Search Interface

Links

• Documents:
• Email discussions:
• Other wiki discussions:

Voting History

• Vote proposed by X on Y, result was +/-n (m non-voting members).

Motivations

Proposal

Metadata is defined by one main language (gmd:MD_Metadata/gmd:language:gco:CharacterString) and other locale (gmd:MD_Metadata/gmd:locale/*).

If user add new translation, a new local element has to be added:

<locale>
		<gmd:PT_Locale id="FR">
			<gmd:languageCode><gmd:LanguageCode codeList="#LanguageCode" codeListValue="fra">French</gmd:LanguageCode></gmd:languageCode>			
			<gmd:characterEncoding><gmd:MD_CharacterSetCode codeList="#MD_CharacterSetCode" codeListValue="utf8">UTF 8</gmd:MD_CharacterSetCode></gmd:characterEncoding>
		</gmd:PT_Locale>
	</locale>

Configuration need to set the available languages the editor could use using a list of iso code.

After editing, the new translated element is stored with:

• an xsi:type= « gmd:PT_FreeText_PropertyType»
• a first gco:CharacterString in the metadata language (in the example en)
• n gmd:PT_FreeText elements with each translation

	<scope xsi:type="gmd:PT_FreeText_PropertyType">
		<gco:CharacterString>Codelists for description of metadata datasets compliant with ISO/TC 211 19115:2003 and 19139</gco:CharacterString>
		<gmd:PT_FreeText>
			<gmd:textGroup>
				<gmd:LocalisedCharacterString locale="#FR ">Listes de codes pour la description de lots de métadonnées conforme ISO TC/211 19115:2003 et 19139</gmd:LocalisedCharacterString>
			</gmd:textGroup>
		</gmd:PT_FreeText>
	</scope>

SchemaLoader should be able to register complexType which are extension based on a PropertyType (and not only a Type). For example :

<xs:complexType name="PT_FreeText_PropertyType">
		<xs:complexContent>
			<xs:extension base="gco:CharacterString_PropertyType">

Then the metadocument should add for all elements which are of type gco:CharacterString_PropertyType an xsi:type option with the list of type available.

<xs:element name="title" type="gco:CharacterString_PropertyType"/>

For title which is a gco:CharacterString_PropertyType, xsi:type could be :

• gco:CharacterString_PropertyType
• gmd:PT_FreeText_PropertyType

Then if an xsi:type="gmd:PT_FreeText_PropertyType" the element is edited in multilingual mode.

Via schema_suggestion, the editor will define if one element should be « suggested » as multilingual or not and which languages to suggest.

<field name="gmd:title">
<suggest name="xsi:type" value="gmd:PT_FreeText_PropertyType">
  <lang value= « eng »/>
  <lang value= « fra »/>
  <lang value= « deu »/>
  <lang value= « ita »/>
</suggest>
</field> 

Then the editor will suggest multilingual editing interface.

GUI

A list of all available languages is proposed to the user next to all gco:CharacterString elements.

Label (?)* : _input_ [Language selection list]

Backwards Compatibility Issues

• Only ISO compliant

Risks

Participants

• List of participants and role (if necessary) in current GIP