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Welcome to the home page for the MessageFormat Working Group, a subgroup of the Unicode CLDR-TC.
The Message Format Working Group (MFWG) is tasked with developing an industry standard for the representation of localizable message strings to be a successor to ICU MessageFormat. MFWG will recommend how to remove redundancies, make the syntax more usable, and support more complex features, such as gender, inflections, and speech. MFWG will also consider the integration of the new standard with programming environments, including, but not limited to, ICU, DOM, and ECMAScript, and with localization platform interchange. The output of MFWG will be a specification for the new syntax, which is expected to be on track to become a Unicode Technical Standard.
We are looking for participation from software developers, localization engineers and others with experience in Internationalization (I18N) and Localization (L10N). If you wish to contribute to this work, please review the information about the Contributor License Agreement.
To follow this work:
- Apply to join our mailing list
- Watch this repository (use the "Watch" button in the upper right corner)
To contribute to this work, in addition to the above:
- Each individual MUST have a copy of the CLA on file.
- Individuals who are employees of Unicode Member organizations SHOULD contact their member representative. Individuals who are not employees of Unicode Member organizations MUST contact the chair to request Invited Expert status. Employees of Unicode Member organizations MAY also apply for Invited Expert status, subject to approval from their member representative.
This is the agenda document for upcoming calls of the MessageFormat Working Group of the CLDR-TC. We normally meet weekly
on Mondays at 9:30 Pacific (America/Los_Angeles). This is currently UTC+7.
See here for your local time.
Information on joining calls is found in the calendar invite.
This block reserved for scribe rotation.
Recent scribes:
- 2025-03-31 MIH
- 2025-03-24 TIM
- 2025-03-17 MIH
- 2025-03-10 USA
- 2025-02-24 MIH, TIM
- 2025-02-17 RGN
- 2025-02-10 MED, MRR
- 2025-02-03 MIH
- 2025-01-28 MRR <- overachiever
- 2025-01-21 MRR
- 2025-01-13 ECH
- 2024-12-16 MIH
- 2024-12-09 RGN
- 2024-11-25 TIM
- 2024-11-18 ECH
- 2024-11-11 MIH
- 2024-11-03 ECH
- 2024-10-28 HGO
- 2024-10-21 APP
- 2025-04-07 Regular Teleconference https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z-dYNF_wNCLr0GgR_7i3rZrf3lJ1_KhHis8xfgICtOo/edit?tab=t.0
The next meeting will be 7 April 2025 and is a regular WG Teleconference call.
To request that the chair add an issue to the agenda, add the label Agenda+ To request that the chair add an agenda item, send email to the message-format-wg group email.
Timeboxed review of items ready for merge.
| PR | Description | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| #1067 | Semantic skeletons design | Discuss (but probably premature) |
| #1066 | Make the Default Bidi Strategy required and default | Discuss |
| #1065 | Draft new charter and goals for v49/v50 and beyond | Discuss, Agenda+ |
| #1064 | Rebranding Unicode MessageFormat | Discuss |
| #1063 | Fix test tags documentation | Merge |
We need to set goals for the working group since we’ve partly or wholly disposed of the ones we had. To that end, Addison has drafted new goals/charter. He presented these to CLDR-TC, asking for feedback. Let’s review:
https://github.com/unicode-org/message-format-wg/issues/1051
https://github.com/unicode-org/message-format-wg/pull/1065
https://github.com/unicode-org/message-format-wg/blob/aphillips-draft-charter/docs/goals.md
Reserving time to discuss the design.
https://github.com/unicode-org/message-format-wg/pull/1067
Reserving time to discuss whether to go with `:percent` or whether to use `:unit unit=percent` and how to handle percents if unscaled.
Discussion of proposals for inflection support and next steps.
Baha sent us this proposal: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ByapCVm0Fge_X3oPAi8NHtJl03ZFMj-NjXxgmAgJBaM/edit?usp=sharing
https://github.com/unicode-org/message-format-wg/issues
Currently we have 34 open (was 34 last time).
- 22 are tagged for 48
- 3 are tagged “Future”
- 13 are
Preview-Feedback - 2 are tagged Feedback
- 1 is
resolve-candidateand proposed for close. - 2 are
Agenda+and proposed for discussion (see below) - 0 are ballots
| Issue | Description | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| #1043 | Deployment, development, and maintenance of messageformat.unicode.org | Discuss |
| #1051 | Plans for v48 | Discuss |
What is the status of our various design docs?
| Doc | Description | Status |
|---|---|---|
| semantic-skeletons | Addition of semantic skeletons to date/time formatting | Proposed |
| maintaining-registry | Maintaining the function registry | Needs Attention |
| number-selection | Define how selection on numbers happens | Needs Attention |
Accepted, Obsolete, and Rejected Designs
| Doc | Description | Status |
|---|---|---|
| dataflow-composability | Data Flow for Composable Functions | Obsolete |
| function-composition-part-1 | Function Composition | Obsolete |
| beauty-contest | Choose between syntax options | Obsolete |
| selection-matching-options | Selection Matching Options (ballot) | Obsolete |
| syntax-exploration-2 | Balloting of the revised syntax used in the Tech Preview | Obsolete |
| variants | A collection of message examples which require a branching logic to handle grammatical variations | Obsolete |
| formatted-parts | Define how format-to-parts works | Rejected |
| quoted-literals | Document the rationale for including quoted literals in MF and for choosing the | as the quote symbol | Accepted |
| builtin-registry-capabilities | Tech Preview default registry definition | Accepted |
| code-mode-introducer | Choose the pattern for complex messages | Accepted |
| data-driven-tests | Capture the planned approach for the test suite | Accepted |
| default-registry-and-mf1-compatibility | Default Registry and MF1 Compatibility | Accepted |
| delimiting-variant-patterns | Delimiting of Patterns in Complex Messages (Ballot) | Accepted |
| error-handling | Decide whether and what implementations do after a runtime error | Accepted |
| exact-match-selector-options | Choose the name for the “exact match” selector function (this is :string) |
Accepted |
| expression-attributes | Define how attributes may be attached to expressions | Accepted |
| open-close-placeholders | Describe the use cases and requirements for placeholders that enclose parts of a pattern | Accepted |
| overriding-extending-namespacing | Defines how externally-authored functions can appear in a message; how externally authored options can appear; and effect of namespacing | Accepted |
| pattern-exterior-whitespace | Specify how whitespace inside of a pattern (at the start/end) works | Accepted |
| string-selection-formatting | Define how selection and formatting of string values takes place. | Accepted |
| variable-mutability | Describe how variables are named and how externally passed variables and internally defined variables interact | Accepted |
| bidi-usability | Manage bidi isolation | Accepted |
| selection-declaration | Effect of selectors on subsequent placeholders | Accepted |