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

[Jorge González González <aloriel gmail com>]

El mar, 02-11-2010 a las 12:09 +0200, lists kambanaria org escribió:
> 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).
Well, sometimes it's impossible to fit your translation in 80
characters, especially when the original message is already quite long.
But never mind.

> 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.
Perhaps this could be included in the translation software, I don't
think it's difficult to create a plugin for gtranslator which marks
certain strings in a different way (colors, whatever...); however I'm
not a hacker myself.

Regards.
-- 
Jorge González González <aloriel gmail com>
Weblog: http://aloriel.no-ip.org
Fotolog: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aloriel