[thelist] Chinese language site

[Teck Low]

I am bidding on a fairly large site for a manufacturing firm. Because they
do business in China, they would like the site to have a Chinese language
component. I hope to draw on the vast knowledge of the board to answer these
questions, and bring up more:

1) Is the Chinese Language Pack that is available from Microsoft a browser
technology or an operating system technology? In other words, if I pull it
down can I see Chinese sites in other browsers?
[IE has the Chinese add-on as a browser/reader. If the OS is non-Chinese you
need this add-on. If the OS is Chinese you are good to go.]

2) What is the different between Chinese and simplified Chinese? What is
more commonly used on Chinese web sites?
[The traditional is used mainly in Taiwan. Other places in the world use
simplified Chinese. Different in the number of strokes it use to form a
character/byte.]

3) My client has a translator, but how will he suppply me text content? Are
there applications that he uses to edit text that will export ASCII?
[The Chinese characters are in 2 bytes ASCII for 1 Chinese character/byte.
You need a Chinese engine to edit the text. IE will not let you edit but
only read/display.]

4) Should graphics with text have Chinese text? How do I add text in say,
Photoshop? Is there a font set? Many sites I see have English navigational
graphics (Home, About Us, Contact, etc.) What is preferable?
	[Yes. See 3. There are Chinese font sets which so far I found works with
Chinese Windows OS. I tried to add Chinese font to English Windows. The font
manager tells me it is an invalid file. Same navigation as English.]
5) Am I crazy to bid on this site based on the above?
	[No, if you know how to write Chinese & your OS support the Chinese engine.
??]

Thanks fo the help. Now, a tip:

<tip type="hover style on images">
Watch using a background color on your hover style. If a transparent image
has an HREF, the hover background will show through, and that's usually not
what the intention was. Create a pseudo style like A: hover.imageStyle if
your browser will support it.
</tip>


Mike



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michael mcglynn
interface designer
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