GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 355620
need translator comments
Last modified: 2006-09-28 00:32:35 UTC
In src/menu.c, the strings for the window menu (the one on the window border icon in the top left of the window) are the same strings as the ones on the context menus on a window button in the window list applet (those strings are in libwnck). But translators seem to translated some of them differently than in libwnck, leading to inconsistencies [see http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-i18n/2006-September/msg00136.html]. Those strings should each have a translator's comment pointing to the strings in libwnck. For example: /* Translators: Translate this string to the same string as the identical string in libwnck! */
Do we want a comment for *each* string, or just one big comment before them all (since they're all on consecutive lines anyway)? Either way, looks like a good task for someone new, since it just means adding comments. :)
Created attachment 72662 [details] [review] comment about translation inconsistences with libwnck I think this is better than each line commented. What do you think?
"this string" should be "these strings" (or maybe even better: "these menuitem strings") if it's only going to be one comment. Also, I'd remove the blank line you added; seems clearer to me that way. Anyway, since I'm not very familiar with i18n work, I'll need chpe or someone familiar with i18n to comment.
Created attachment 72664 [details] [review] comment about translation inconsistences with libwnck fixed
This won't work: the translator comment needs to be on the line immediately preceding the N_() string. The comment will only be put in the pot file for the string it labels, not for all strings that follow it. So I'd say labelling each string would be better, so the translator sees the comment for each string.
Can't we create a unique set of strings in _one_ file, not repeat the strings in both files? That would remove the problem. Clytie, Vietnamese translator
(In reply to comment #6) > Can't we create a unique set of strings in _one_ file, not repeat the strings > in both files? > > That would remove the problem. Yes, it would remove the problem. If it were trivial, it would have already been done. There are also other things that need to be kept in sync between libwnck and metacity; they have the same issues. I haven't seen a good proposal for how to automatically sync the two yet. If someone would like to propose a way to automatically keep libwnck and metacity in sync, please open a separate bug as it would need to be done with far more code than just these strings. For now, I think we should implement what chpe points out in comment 5; hopefully I can get chpe to review/commit the patch as well. ;-)
I have no wish to discourage the use of contextual information (particularly once we start using msgctxt in gettext-0.15), but I have noticed in updating files from other translators, how often translators misunderstand, or perhaps just ignore, comments on how to format the translation. I think part of that is having difficulty distinguishing these comments from the usual #. text, and files where these lines start with "i18n:" or "TRANSLATORS:" do get better compliance. So I'd recommend using gettext-0.15 (msgctxt): msgctxt "contextual information" msgid "original text" msgstr "translated text" or marking "#." comments clearly.
Created attachment 73256 [details] [review] comment about translation inconsistences with libwnck And now?
Thanks.