[wp-polyglots] 2.3 Beta 1 & strings descriptions

[F Wolff]

Op Dinsdag 2007-08-28 skryf Nikolay Bachiyski:
> 2007/8/28, F Wolff:
> > Op Dinsdag 2007-08-28 skryf Nikolay Bachiyski:
> 
> Hello Friedel,

Hi Nikolay


....

> > If the issue is that the same text is used in different contexts, isn't
> > the solution to use msgctxt? This ensures proper opportunities for QA,
> > fuzzy matching, reuse, etc.
> >
> > Perhaps just as useful in this case is to tell translators in #.
> > comments what "raquo" actually is. I can't imagine that everybody knows
> > that.
> 
> You are absolutely right. The moment all major translating tools
> support these gettext features we will start using them. The problem
> now is especially with msgctxt. poEdit doesn't support it and not
> every translators uses a unix system and KBabel, which does support
> it. We are this hack for comments, because translators tend not to
> notice #. ones.
> 
> Believe me, I also would like us to take advantage of the full-fledged
> gettext features. However, we want to allow various translators to do
> their job as efficiently as possible, regardless of technical
> limitations.
> 

Yes. The issue for msgctxt support is filed for poEdit here:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1680554&group_id=27043&atid=389153
The upcoming Pootling editor should handle msgctxt without problem, and
will also be cross platform.

About translators not reading #. comments, well, that is a problem. I
find it sad that this method must then be to the disadvantage of other
translators :-/  And, will they definitely read these new ones and
understand them?

> >
> > If we really, really need to stuff the msgid with context information,
> > why don't we at least use one of the existing schemes like the ones used
> > before in KDE? At least some translation tools tried to support it.
> 
> Could you elaborate in this schemes. The one we have adopted is being
> used by Gnome.
> 

Not as far as I know. This is an extract from the evolution pot file:

#. Translators: This is the string used for displaying the
#. * folder names in folder trees. "%s" will be replaced by
#. * the folder's name and "%u" will be replaced with the
#. * number of unread messages in the folder.
#. *
#. * Most languages should translate this as "%s (%u)". The
#. * languages that use localized digits (like Persian) may
#. * need to replace "%u" with "%Iu". Right-to-left languages
#. * (like Arabic and Hebrew) may need to add bidirectional
#. * formatting codes to take care of the cases the folder
#. * name appears in either direction.
#. *
#. * Do not translate the "folder-display|" part. Remove it
#. * from your translation.
#.
#: ../mail/em-folder-tree.c:368
#, c-format
msgid "folder-display|%s (%u)"
msgstr ""

It seems the WordPress method seems to be the other way round (with the
translatable part at the start)

The KDE method looks like this:
_: comment here\n
at the start of the msgid. At least some tools support that. I don't
know if any tools support the GNOME context strings.

Also interesting to note that the evolution guys are not shy with the
automatic comments :-)

> Happy translating,
> Nikolay.

Thanks. I would. I'm still waiting for the default theme to be
internationalised. (I hope I haven't missed the announcement.)

Keep well
Friedel