Alternative Language and Replacement Structure

The Alternative Language and Replacement Structure is located by going to the Languages Menu and launching the Languages dialog.

All languages or locales in use come from a pool of available languages. From the pool, the chosen set are organized into a tree structure by simple drag-and-drop operations. One language or locale is assigned the default language of the document. This default language or locale has two nodes or items in the tree, one sitting at the top of it, and another in its normal position in the heirarchy. This dual-entry approach is important because the default language or locale is dynamically changed. Once there is a change, the other actually preserves the original position. The top node is also essential because the default language or locale is the most useful entry in the tree. Being so, it should be easily accessible. Another and most important role the top node plays is in the replacement process.

Value Replacement

Any multilingual attribute that has no value for a particular language or locale, whether an actual value saved or default value, consults the replacement tree to get a replacement. It climbs ascendrally to find a suitable value. And so a particular language represented by a node in the tree, goes up to its parent node and examines it whether it has an actual value saved. If found the value is taken and the search is terminated. If unsuccessful, it continues its ascendral climb and examination, until it finds a suitable value or the last node examined is that of the default language or locale on either of its two nodes. At the top it stops because there is no more node to search. At its original position, the climb is disallowed because the default language is the language of last resort, even if in actuality there are still nodes above it. In other words, all nodes below the normal node of the default language or locale are impliedly promoted together with the default language placed at the top.

If the search for actual value is a failure, the search process is repeated, this time for any default value.