Re: gnumeric: Note to translators

[Dennis Bjorklund <db zigo dhs org>]

On 12 Feb 2001, Kjartan Maraas wrote:

> I really think that compiling the app/library in question is needed.
> There's no way to determine all
> possible contices(?) without actually looking at what's on screen. I

But it's not enough to just compile a program. One must find where the
text appears in a dialog. Of course you can click on every button and open
every dialog, but that's not enough...

I have for example translated GnuCash. There is a lot of strings marked
for translation there. Some of the strings are even marked for translation
but does not appear in the program at all. It's dialogs and part of the
program that are not enabled in the stable build.

There is also a problem with strings that is not just in dialogs but in
reports that come when you have a set of transaktions entered and then you
press some buttons and make some choices and up comes a page looking like
html with text on it. To generate all kind of output by clicking on
buttons is not good.

It's not just a question of compiling and running. We do that also.

> know many people do their work without even looking at the source, and
> even in Windows and other stuff, and I do see that this is the way it
> has to be for some of us. On the other hand I don't think it's right
> to go out of our way to accomodate this in the source.

But in many cases you have to change the source since english is an
ambigous language.

In most cases it is not a problem, but in the tricky cases it is good to
put in comments pointing out a specific meaning of a word. To translate a
program to thirty languages and have every translator do the same work
identifying the same hard cases is just a wast of time. One the first
person (maybe the programmer) finds a problem then it could go into the
source as a comment to help the other twentynine translators.

> The best "solution" to this problem would be for more companies to
> hire full-time i18n/l10n people :-)

Sure. And for every major language in the world :-)

> Note that I really appreciate that many people don't have the time,
> resources etc to do this work 100% and I think everyone is doing a
> great job.

I don't think it is a question of just time.

-- 
/Dennis