Re: Cantus 3 I18N check

[Danilo Segan <danilo gnome org>]

Hi Samuel,

Today at 11:20, Samuel Abels wrote:

> As a preparation of a Cantus 3 final release with closer GNOME
> integration I have proposed the program for GNOME2.8 on the
> desktop-devel-list.
>
> I have been asked to have the internationalisation checked with this
> list, so I would be glad to receive your comments.

Please use intltool for handling translations.  You can check a guide
Malcolm wrote for integrating it with source code at
http://gnome.org/~malcolm/i18n/.

It expects you to use auto* tools as a build system, but since you're
not doing that, you might be able to get away with something like:
   echo GETTEXT_PACKAGE=cantus >configure.ac && touch po/POTFILES.in \
   && (cd po && intltool-update -m && mv missing POTFILES.in)

This would provide translators with rudimentary support for using
intltool-update to update their translations.

You'd probably want to move .glade files out of POTFILES.in into
POTFILES.skip, if you're using generated C code instead of Glade
files directly.

You're also missing on using plural forms support, which is essential
in Gnome for many languages.  The example of string that would
benefit from ngettext usage is the following:

#: src/plugins/mpegheader/displayarea.cc:108
#, c-format
msgid "%i Files selected.\n"

Also, please read the guide at
  http://developer.gnome.org/doc/tutorials/gnome-i18n/developer.html
which is talking about many more issues relevant to i18n and l10n.

When you read that, you'll learn why are messages like

#: src/ui-gtk2/glade/cantus-3.glade.h:2 src/ui-gtk2/glade/strings.c:17
msgid "<b>File Browsing</b>"

very bad (though, this is hard to avoid with Glade currently).

There are probably some terminology issues as well (search for Gnome
HIG and Gnome Documentation Style Guide on developer.gnome.org), but
that's only partly in the I18N realm.

I hope this helps your cause of getting Cantus 3 into Gnome.

Cheers,
Danilo