Globalization Plan - Other Issues

Collation – Different languages sort data differently and in some instances within our sites it may be an important consideration. In some cases, we are sorting by non-string data (for instance, news is sorted by date). However, products are often sorted alphanumerically by their display name (after taking into account the priority). As mentioned earlier, this can be handled within the SQL syntax using COLLATE. Nonetheless, instances where internal ColdFusion sorting functionality is used will have to be accommodated (possibly through the inclusion of IBM's ICU4J). I am not aware of any such cases at this point in time however.

Searching – To my knowledge, we are not using ColdFusion's built-in Verity search technology at the moment, but it has been discussed as an option to replace the limitations and inefficiencies of LIKE queries. Thus, searching may have to be accommodated in the long term but is not a pressing issue in the near term.

Calendars – Given the functionality on existing sites, accommodating non-Gregorian calendar systems may not be an urgent consideration. I am not aware of any items that would be date-sensitive from a user's perspective. Still, it is important to note, should additional functionality be requested that requires calendar considerations, that locales such as Japan and China, for example, use non-Gregorian calendar systems. This may also require incorporating functionality available through leveraging the capabilities built into ICU4J.

Time Zones – In much the same manner as calendars, I do not believe we have any time-sensitive information currently in use on our sites. The recommended solution, should this be required in the longer term, is storing time information in Greenwich Mean Time and converting it to the user's time zone.

BIDI Locales – BIDI stands for bi-directional in relation to those locales that require that a page be oriented from right-to-left. As of writing this, I am not aware of intentions to support BIDI locales such as Hebrew or Arabic. Should this be a long term goal though, it will affect the entire design and layout process.

Addresses – I do not believe this is yet a consideration given that contact information is collected via an outside vendor (and I do not believe we have intentions of supporting this for international at the moment). Should this change, address collection forms and databases will have to be built taking into account non-U.S. formatted addresses.

Measurement – While product information occasionally refers to the objects measurement, differences in measurement can be accommodated in translation at the moment as (I believe) measurement data is not stored independently.