Re: Translating schema files (was: Re: Survey results (yay!))

[lists kambanaria org]

Just to suggest an idea:

The predominant message thus far has been "Developers you should do more
work, so that we can translate less of your application". Perhaps we can
improve it a bit.

Speaking as a member of a supported language:

The style of the translation of strings is different depending on the
place they appear.

- Interface strings demand maximum clarity in minimum characters.
Additionally in testing - you can change them to improve the layout of the
windows, menus, etc. Plus you need to check keyboard shortcuts.

- With schema messages you translate to explain things, so you can really
write sentences and paragraphs to be sure that the user understands the
gconf key meaning.

- Console messages have demands on their own. On the one hand they can be
reformatted to fit the most usual terminal size (for example width of 80
chars). On the other hand a team can decide to use a more limited
character set for console messages (for example the whole range of UTF-8
characters for interface, limited subset known to work in terminals, or
fitting popular for the locale 8bit charsets).

So explaining the different types of messages has *strong* benefits for
teams that intend to translate the strings. The messages are not being
singled out for negligence. Providing the type will improve the
translation and review. Please note that I am using the term "console
messages" - those that appear on the command line. I do not think the term
"error message" used in the discussion thus far had a clear enough
definition - I do think people wrote about different issues.


Kind regards:
al_shopov