Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 7/9] gtk: add translation support (v5)

[Daniel P. Berrange]

On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 06:19:49PM +0100, Andreas Färber wrote:
> Am 20.02.2013 17:53, schrieb Daniel P. Berrange:
> > On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 05:24:02PM +0100, Andreas Färber wrote:
> >> Am 20.02.2013 17:16, schrieb Daniel P. Berrange:
> >>> On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 05:10:54PM +0100, Andreas Färber wrote:
> >>>> Am 20.02.2013 14:43, schrieb Anthony Liguori:
> >>>>> This includes a de_DE translation from Kevin Wolf and an it translation 
> >>>>> from
> >>>>> Paolo Bonzini.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Cc: Paolo Bonzini <address@hidden>
> >>>>> Cc: Kevin Wolf <address@hidden>
> >>>>> Cc: Stefan Hajnoczi <address@hidden>
> >>>>> Signed-off-by: Anthony Liguori <address@hidden>
> >>>>> ---
> >>>>> v1 -> v4
> >>>>>  - Don't use '|| exit 1' with sub-invocation of make
> >>>>>  - Actually include Kevin's translation
> >>>>> v4 -> v5
> >>>>>  - Update translations (Kevin and Paolo)
> >>>>>  - Fix 'make update' for it.po
> >>>>> ---
> >>>>>  Makefile       |  3 +++
> >>>>>  configure      |  4 +++-
> >>>>>  po/Makefile    | 46 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> >>>>>  po/de_DE.po    | 45 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> >>>>>  po/it.po       | 45 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> >>>>>  po/messages.po | 45 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> >>>>>  ui/gtk.c       | 22 +++++++++++++++-------
> >>>>>  7 files changed, 202 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)
> >>>>>  create mode 100644 po/Makefile
> >>>>>  create mode 100644 po/de_DE.po
> >>>>>  create mode 100644 po/it.po
> >>>>>  create mode 100644 po/messages.po
> >>>>
> >>>> IIUC this uses the English texts as key for lookup of translations.
> >>>> Experience shows that while that is most convenient for the English it
> >>>> leads to grammatical mistakes in other languages due to text reuse in
> >>>> wrong contexts. A prominent example is "Server" being translated as
> >>>> "Kellner" (which is waiter) in some early Windows NT version. :) More
> >>>> recent examples commonly found are ambiguities of, e.g., "Update" as
> >>>> noun vs. imperative - happens if the same wording is used in a menu and
> >>>> in some options dialog or status text. Similar for ing-forms translated
> >>>> as noun vs. infinitive vs. first-person present.
> >>>>
> >>>> Better would be to use unique alphanumeric identifiers (e.g.,
> >>>> "Menu.File.Quit") and to have a regular translation file for en (or
> >>>> whatever suitable as fallback).
> >>>
> >>> Your points may be valid, but this patch follows standard practice for
> >>> i18n of any GTK app, in fact standard across pretty much all open
> >>> source projects I've worked on. I don't think QEMU should try to do
> >>> something non-standard for translation files.
> >>
> >> Not having translations may be better quality-wise than having known
> >> broken translations just because that is considered standard practice by
> >> English speakers that don't actually see or need them.
> > 
> > People doing the translations simply need to be aware of the issue and
> > look at the context of the usage. Developes can help them do this by
> > putting special comments in the source code to provide hints on context
> > eg
> > 
> >   /* TRANSLATORS: ....some hint texts.... */
> >   foo(_("Some string"))
> > 
> > this text gets copied into the .pot file
> > 
> >   #. TRANSLATORS: ...some hint texts...
> >   #: filename.c
> >   msgid "Some string"
> >   msgstr ""
> > 
> > so the translators can then understand the usage context & do the right
> > translation.
> 
> You're missing my point: The problem is the msgid "Foo" line unless you
> get msgid "Foo" for each occurrence of _L("Foo") rather than once. If
> the tools allow per-occurrence translations then everything is fine,
> with or without comments. Problem is only when tools try to be clever.

That problem is solveable too:

 https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/gettext.html#Contexts

Regards,
Daniel
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