XML Merge: Assembling Form Views

This section describes the process of building localized HTML pages for each language the PT application supports. The pages are built from globalized XML template files that reside in the application's Global directory. The administrator selects a language from the application's Build menu. This selection calls code in Build.asp that creates an instance of the Lingo object (Litware.Lingo). The Lingo object then loads the lingo.xml file and the globalized XML template files and iterates through each template file, inserting localized text strings into each user interface element in the file. The files are then delivered as HTML files into the application's directory (en_us, de, or ja) for each language. After these files are in the directory, the application can return them to browsers that support each language.

The following topics discuss the development techniques the LitWare team used to create the code that implements the XML merge process:

• Implementing XML in Lingo and Globalized Template Files describes the XML code that is converted into HTML, and shows the HTML output of the XML merge process.
• Merging XML Files to Create Localized HTML Files describes the code in the Lingo component that transforms globalized XML template files into HTML files.