[wp-polyglots] Unicode characters instead of entities in POT

[Thomas Scholz]

Samuel Murray (Groenkloof):

> Thomas Scholz wrote:
>
>> This depends on the MIME type...
>
> I think it depends on the browser :-)

Both. :)

>> Any other entity might be shown literal.
>
> Is there a list somewhere on the web of which browsers show them literal?

Sorry, I don’t have such a list, and I avoid XHTML since 2002, so … sorry.

>> Some older user agents (Opera 7...) do exactly that.
>
> Earlier versions of Opera implemented the standards very strictly, and  
> as a result, many web sites did not work correctly in Opera.  Then the  
> Opera people got smart and started implementing what they call "street  
> HTML", if Opera detects that a page is possibly non-compliant.

Now, you’re talking about text/html. This quite a different situation.  
There is no doctype switch real XHTML.

>> So: If you don’t use real UTF-8, use numeric character references, eg.  
>> … not ….
>
> I think a reason why hellip may be used is because it is easy to "read"  
> what the character is.  It is an ellips.  If numbered codes were used,  
> translators would not know what the code means unless they used a  
> look-up table, and volunteer translators tend not to use look-up tables  
> -- they prefer educated guesswork, which in the case of numbered  
> entities can be dangerous.

I’m not so pessimistic. Anyway, I don’t recommend replacemends at all;  
numeric references are just more safe.

> My own opinion is to reduce the "fancy" characters to a minimum.

What are fancy characters? Вы не говорите по-русски?

>>> A translator needs a working knowledge of HTML anyway. Replacing or
>>> adding verbose descriptions of entities isn't worth it.
>
>> Antithesis: A translator needs basic knowledge of character encoding  
>> anyway.
>
> This applies to trained, professional translators.  Volunteer  
> translators are often amateurs and have very little training.  One has  
> to be pragmatic -- a logical, easy to use system is better than  
> something which is correct only from a purist's point of view.

The only thing a translator has to know is this:

> Do you know of PO editors that make it easy for translators to type the  
> raquo and the hellip?  Neither PoEdit nor Virtaal does.

This is not a function of the editor but of the general environment:  
operating system wide settings.
There are many tools like Allchars <http://allchars.zwolnet.com/> or  
browser widgets <http://widgets.opera.com/widget/3693/>.

I think most translators are smart enough to use these tools. Some hints  
in the language files could help, of course.

Thomas


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