User interface for machine aided authoring and translation

• US 20070250509A1
• Filed: 04/21/2006
• Published: 10/25/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 04/21/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Liger, Francois, Kohlmeier, Bernhard, Pamarthi, Ramakrishna, Ahs, David, Kepner, Jason, Mody, Viraj, Lerum, Cameron, Marti, Jordi, Falkena, Jan, Lee, Byung, Nelson, Jan
• Granted Patent: US 7,711,546 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/211 Syntactic parsing, e.g. based on context-free grammar [CFG] or unification grammars
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/226 Validation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/58 Use of machine translation, e.g. for multi-lingual retrieval, for server-side translation for client devices or for real-time translation

Abstract

A user interface and associated methods for machine aided authoring and translation is provided. The user interface can display strings and associated metadata to assist with authoring and translations. The metadata can be used to mark the strings. The metadata can include one or more constraints which correspond to evaluation criteria and one or more anchor points operable to project the constraints against a string.

Claims

1. A computer-readable medium having computer-readable components for processing source data, comprising:

an input string display component operable to obtain and display a source string, wherein the source string is associated with metadata, and wherein the metadata includes one or more constraints, and wherein the one or more constraints correspond to evaluation criteria and one or more anchor points operable to project the constraints against the source string.

2. The computer-readable medium as recited in claim 1, wherein the computer-readable medium further comprises:

a comment display component operable to obtain and display comments associated with a source string.

3. The computer-readable medium as recited in claim 1, wherein the computer-readable medium further comprises:

a compiler component operable to infer metadata from the source string, and wherein the inferred metadata is displayed.

4. The computer-readable medium as recited in claim 1, wherein at least one constraint is operable to perform a terminology check, and wherein the result of the terminology check is displayed as a suggestion.

5. The computer-readable medium as recited in claim 1, wherein the computer-readable medium further comprises:

a marking component operable to mark strings displayed to a user according to associated metadata, and wherein the marking component is further operable to identify invalid portions of a string.

6. The computer-readable medium as recited in claim 1, wherein a pseudo-translation of the source string is generated using fuzzying techniques, and wherein the translation is corrected according to associated metadata;

and

the computer-readable medium further comprising a translation display component operable to display the pseudo-translation.

7. The computer-readable medium as recited in claim 1, wherein the computer-readable medium further comprises:

a confidence-level component operable to provide an indicator of how difficult a corresponding string will be to translate.

8. The computer-readable medium as recited in claim 1, wherein the computer-readable medium further comprises:

a suggested display component operable to display suggested values of portions of the source string according to the constraints.

9. In a computer system including a display, a method for displaying data, the method comprising:

obtaining source data, wherein the source data includes a source string;

marking the source string according to metadata associated with the source string, wherein the metadata includes one or more constraints, and wherein the one or more constraints correspond to evaluation criteria and one or more anchor points operable to project the constraints against the source string;

displaying the marked source string on the display;

generating a translation of the marked source string; and

displaying the translation on the display.

10. The method as recited in claim 9, wherein the method further comprises:

obtaining suggested values corresponding to at least a portion of the marked source string; and

displaying the suggested values on the display as one or more auto-completes, wherein a user can select one or more of the auto-completes.

11. The method as recited in claim 9, wherein the source string is displayed in a format that corresponds to a resource, and wherein a user can edit the source string in that format.

12. The method as recited in claim 9, wherein the method further comprises:

displaying the associated metadata; and

marking unsatisfied constraints.

13. The method as recited in claim 10, wherein suggested values correspond to modifications of a string such that the modified string validates against the metadata.

14. A method for displaying data comprising:

obtaining source data, wherein the source data includes a source string, and wherein the source string corresponds to metadata, and wherein the metadata includes one or more constraints, and wherein the one or more constraints correspond to evaluation criteria and one or more anchor points operable to place the constraints against the source string;

marking the source string according to the corresponding metadata;

displaying the marked source string on a display;

obtaining a target string, wherein the target string corresponds to a translation of the source string;

marking the target string according to the metadata;

displaying the marked target string on the display; and

displaying information corresponding to projected metadata.

15. The method as recited in claim 14, wherein the information corresponding to projected metadata includes the position of constraints on the source and target strings.

16. The method as recited in claim 14, wherein the information corresponding to projected metadata includes one or more messages alerting a user to unsatisfied constraints.

17. The method as recited in claim 14, wherein the information corresponding to projected metadata includes the position of unsatisfied constraints on the source and target string.

18. The method as recited in claim 14, wherein the method further comprises:

marking invalid string sections.

19. The method as recited in claim 14, wherein the method further comprises:

displaying information corresponding to one or more terms in a string, and wherein the information includes one or more translations which correspond to the one or more terms in the string.

20. The method as recited in claim 14, wherein the method further comprises:

displaying information corresponding to the position of constraints that have been projected onto a string.