FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

A. You want to have whatever is customary for names of languages, such as when listed in computer menus. However, you want to make sure that there is consistent casing for all of the items, so before making any changes, be sure to get agreement among all the translators for your language -- otherwise we'll get a ransom note effect!

A. You need to remove "(other)" or the equivalent from language names. In general, you should avoid using parentheses in the names of languages, scripts, or regions if at all possible. There is more information about this in the zoomed view.

A. Click on the status icon: , , , , or

A. The tool may be slow if many people are active at the same time. It is also slow the first time you open a page, and especially slow after any update to the code. Also, when you make changes, it reruns the tests over all possible items that could be related, which can take some time.

We ask your patience when this happens. If it is preventing you from doing your work, please sent a message to cldr-users@unicode.org (CLDR Users).

A. For those items where you can use the "unzoomed view", you can make all of the changes on the page at once, which saves time. Just remember to save your changes before leaving the page, or they will be lost!

A. When you zoom in, the contents open in another window (or tab). Unfortunately, your browser may not bring that window to the top, so you may have to bring that window (or tab) to the front manually. What helps, if you have a wide screen, is to right-click when zooming the first time, and open a separate window, then move that window so it doesn't overlap. The same for the References window.

A. You basically want to get multiple organizations to agree on the best value. For details on the voting process, see Resolution Procedure.

A. First off, you only need references where an item is contentious -- where you want to point to a dictionary or other reference to establish that it is the right usage. Unfortunately, adding references is a bit cumbersome right now. A reference is bundled together with a value, so to add a reference to a value, go to the zoom view, copy the value to the Change box, and use the pulldown reference menu to pick the reference.

A. Then you need to click on the "Add/Lookup References" link. That will take you to a page where you can add a new reference (and see all the details on the others).

A. The Unicode CLDR data uses inheritance. That means that if you are looking at English (United Kingdom) (a "sublocale") most of the data is inherited from English (which contains data for the US), called the "parent locale". Such data will show up as red. You only need to have different data in the sublocale where there are important differences in usage from the parent locale.

Data in a sublocale may be spuriously different; that is, the parent's data may be perfectly acceptable in the sublocale, but somehow a difference has crept in. In that case, you should vote for the parent's data to reduce the gratuitous differences.

A. If there is no other translation available, what you will see is a "neutral" code, typically an ISO code. In cases where there is no such code available, such as for labels like "Month", then you may see English -- which needs to be translated.

A. You can only delete an item if you yourself have entered it, and there are no other votes. Go to the zoom view. You should see a checkbox marked Delete Item. Click on it and save changes. To remove a spurious difference in a sublocale, vote for the red fallback item.

A. It doesn't really matter much. What is really important is to make sure the the right item is voted for; so try to get consensus as described above. If all the alternatives are really wrong, and you really don't know what the right item would be, vote for the red fallback item.

A. Everyone can add data to "Unknown or Invalid Language" (und), so you can try out the Survey tool there without worry.

A. You should zoom in on the items you have questions about, and read the information towards the bottom of the page.

In many cases, even seemingly straightforward translations like the language, script, and territory names have issues. For example, these may have been direct translations from ISO standards, which are quite often not the best ones names for computer interfaces.

If you have further questions, or problems with the Survey Tool, send a message to cldr-users@unicode.org.

• Zooming in showing no items
• Vetting View and other views not showing American timezones (Pacific/Mountain/Central/Eastern)
• Some load problems causing slowdowns or unresponsiveness.
• Items with errors, warnings, or votes that you couldn't modify.

Operation

1. Losing changes when leaving a page
• If you navigate away from a page, but don't save the changes, your changes will be lost. This also happens if there is no activity on the page for a while (like 10 minutes).
• Work-Around: if you've made changes, don't leave a page without [Save Changes]
  
2. Zooming, but don't see new window
• When you zoom in, the contents open in another window (or tab). Unfortunately, your browser may not bring that window to the top, so you may have to bring that window (or tab) to the front manually.
• Work-around, see the FAQ
3. Priority View Sorting

• In the priority view, the groupings should correspond to the icons: Errors, Warnings, Unapproved Items, Approved Items, Inherited Items. However, the last three sets are not sorted in separate sections. That means that you have to look through all of the last section for problems.
• The title text for the icons should be: the singular of the above term (eg Warning) plus " - click for details"

Navigation

1. When a side window (references or zoom) is opened, it may not come to the front; or if the user is in full-screen mode, may completely hide the main view.
   • Workaround: don't make the browser window full-screen, and have the zoom and references windows both visible (on large screens) or overlapping (on small ones).
2. In a forum window, View Item and Reply should be visibly links (eg underlined).
3. The Forum messages for an item should be always shown in the zoomed view, at the bottom.
   • Eg there shouldn't be a view http://unicode.org/cldr/apps/survey?forum=fr&d=view&id=17. Clicking on view item in a forum will just go to the zoomed view.

Examples and Help

1. The CheckDates demo doesn't work with mm:ss.SS
2. There needs to be a one-digit day example, to show the difference between EEEE, dd MMMM yyyy and EEEE, d MMMM yyyy

Formatting

1. The Change text box may overlap the following column (appears to be a browser bug, but we need to compensate for it.)
2. The CheckNumbers and CheckDates demos should be inlined in the zoomed view, not requiring extra link click.
3. People seem to miss some of the links on the page, like General Instructions at the top right.
4. Code Lists and Other Items should be clearer, we call them Sections elsewhere. Perhaps List Sections and Pattern Sections?
5. Fields that have a single space (like the French thousands separator) can't be distinguished from being empty. Invisible characters like RLM may be hard to work with.
   
6. There are occasional minor display problems:
1. overlapping text
2. missing table lines
7. There are some confusing messages or UI:
1. The coverage level should be grayed during the vetting period, since it has no effect.