translating xml documents in a cms

I'm working on a xmlbased cms that should support multiple languages , I'm
wrestling with how to best handle the process of translating xml documents
between different languages. The idea is that there should be a translator
role with a specifik interface, this translator has right to translate from
one language to another.

First I simply envisioned a split screen interface where he'd see the
original document and start translating it to another language, then I
realized
things are a bit more complicated than that, the xml document actually
contains tags that control the functionality of the page, say that shows a
forum-thread, journal entry or whatever.

If the translator is fluent with xml and the meaning of these tasks
everything is fine, but optimally you'd want the translator only to have to
know
how to translate between the languages and not being able to meddle with
those other tags, but how to accomplish that? you can't simply restrict him
from changing the tag structure either because of things like paragraph tags
that is different between translations, you could make up a template of some
sort I guess that defines what the translatable sections of a document is
but that doesn't seem like a simple task both from a technical and interface
standpoint.

Anyone wrestled with the same problem, thoughts, ideas? Should one keep it
simple and allow the translator to edit the documents in their entirety?

mvh
---
Mattias Konradsson

--
http://cms-list.org/
more signal, less noise.