GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 644090
toggle-switch-us/toggle-switch-intl is limiting
Last modified: 2019-07-24 17:12:22 UTC
Thanks for your work on GNOME shell! It would be great to pay attention to some of these i18n issues about strings for translation. Maybe "UUIDs"? ../data/org.gnome.shell.gschema.xml.in.h:22 Uuids of extensions to disable These strings should use ngettext/plurals: ../js/ui/endSessionDialog.js:66 %s will be logged out automatically in %d seconds. ../js/ui/endSessionDialog.js:67 You will be logged out automatically in %d seconds. ../js/ui/endSessionDialog.js:76 The system will shut down automatically in %d seconds. ../js/ui/endSessionDialog.js:86 The system will restart automatically in %d seconds. Why are we limited to this choice? #. Translators: this MUST be either "toggle-switch-us" #. (for toggle switches containing the English words #. "ON" and "OFF") or "toggle-switch-intl" (for toggle #. switches containing "◯" and "|"). Other values will #. simply result in invisible toggle switches. #: ../js/ui/popupMenu.js:612 msgid "toggle-switch-us" Why can't we translate ON and OFF? This will not be properly translatable: #. TRANSLATORS: this is a time string, as in "%d hours %d minutes remaining" #: ../js/ui/status/power.js:120 #, c-format msgid "%d %s %d %s remaining" #: ../js/ui/status/power.js:122 msgid "hour" msgid_plural "hours" #: ../js/ui/status/power.js:122 msgid "minute" msgid_plural "minutes" The positioning of the %d variables should be in the hour/hours message and similarly for minutes. Furthermore I'm not sure it is safe to even assume that a construct like this can be done by simple concatenation. Please take this up on the i18n mailing list.
This should probably be reviewed by a native speaker, but I think this should be two sentences: ../js/ui/status/bluetooth.js:243 The requested device cannot be browsed, error is '%s' -> The requested device cannot be browsed. The error is '%s'.
(In reply to comment #0) > Why can't we translate ON and OFF? Because the IEC specifies that power switches should be labeled "◯" and "|", and pretty much everyone except the US follows that, so the international form should be easily-recognized by any non-Americans, but looks weird to some Americans. (And because virtually no other languages besides English have an idiomatic way of expressing on-vs-off in just 2 or 3 letters, which is all that can fit in the switch graphic.)
F Wolff: concerning your comments, for Spanish: Maybe "UUIDs"? ../data/org.gnome.shell.gschema.xml.in.h:22 Uuids of extensions to disable In Spanish, acronyms in capital letters do not add plural 's', even if they refer to several items. But I understand your point. These strings should use ngettext/plurals: ../js/ui/endSessionDialog.js:66 %s will be logged out automatically in %d seconds. ../js/ui/endSessionDialog.js:67 You will be logged out automatically in %d seconds. ../js/ui/endSessionDialog.js:76 The system will shut down automatically in %d seconds. ../js/ui/endSessionDialog.js:86 The system will restart automatically in %d seconds. This is tricky, and many times the usual GNOME i18n solution is not valid for Spanish. For example: msgid: 1 hour and 1 minute remaining. should be: msgstr: Queda 1 hora y 1 minuto. but: msgid: 1 hour and 2 minutes remaining. should be: msgstr: Quedan 1 hora y 2 minutos. (See the difference in the verb.) I don't know how does this work for other languages. About "◯" and "|", in Spanish we chose those ones, instead of "ON" and "OFF", however we could have used the translation of "YES" and "NO" (both 2 letters in Spanish), however those two buttons are already in many electronic devices and I don't think they represent a problem in our language, however, again, I understand your point. Best regards.
(In reply to comment #2) > (And because virtually no other languages besides English have an idiomatic way > of expressing on-vs-off in just 2 or 3 letters, which is all that can fit in > the switch graphic.) How can you be so sure? I think Japanese can express on/off in one (squared) letter. I'm a Vietnamese, and I'm sure we can translate on/off in exactly three letters.
(In reply to comment #4) > (In reply to comment #2) > > (And because virtually no other languages besides English have an idiomatic way > > of expressing on-vs-off in just 2 or 3 letters, which is all that can fit in > > the switch graphic.) > > How can you be so sure? I think Japanese can express on/off in one (squared) > letter. I'm a Vietnamese, and I'm sure we can translate on/off in exactly three > letters. The main point is that the switches should imitate physical switches. For instance in German, "ON"/"OFF" would translate to "AN"/"AUS", which fits quite nicely. However, I've never encountered any device which would use that terminology for switches.
Florian, I think whether or not the widgets should imitate physical switches is a choice for the localisation team. If English labels are common in my country, obviously I don't want that in my localisation, since that is the whole reason why I'm doing localisation - to _not_ have things in English. Your are basically saying that no new language is allowed to enter the environment of software or digital devices, which is exactly the opposite of what localisation teams are trying to do -- to at least change things in Free Software where we have the power to do so. If we're merely developing software to imitate existing things, I should basically just stop doing localisation, since English software is most common in my country. Please let us also discuss the rest of the bug. Hopefully they are less contentious.
(In reply to comment #5) > (In reply to comment #4) > > (In reply to comment #2) > > > (And because virtually no other languages besides English have an idiomatic way > > > of expressing on-vs-off in just 2 or 3 letters, which is all that can fit in > > > the switch graphic.) > > > > How can you be so sure? I think Japanese can express on/off in one (squared) > > letter. I'm a Vietnamese, and I'm sure we can translate on/off in exactly three > > letters. > > The main point is that the switches should imitate physical switches. For > instance in German, "ON"/"OFF" would translate to "AN"/"AUS", which fits quite > nicely. However, I've never encountered any device which would use that > terminology for switches. The minor point is, you made an exception for US but forced it for the rest of the world, which is why I raised it. The main point is, as F Wolff wrote, this decision should be on l10n teams. I ran around my house and could not find "◯" nor "|" on any switches (they are either red spot for on, or blank for off). I can check some more houses. First time I used gnome-shell, I wondered what those symbols were for. But I would probably not be counted as the target audience so my opnion would not count.
Nguyen: "The main point is, as F Wolff wrote, this decision should be on l10n teams. I ran around my house and could not find "◯" nor "|" on any switches (they are either red spot for on, or blank for off). I can check some more houses." You will probably find a circle AND a bar crossing it: http://www.google.cz/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=on+off+button In front of me, right now, I've got 7 of those.
(In reply to comment #7) > The main point is, as F Wolff wrote, this decision should be on l10n teams. Originally it was, and there was a big comment explaining in all caps that the translations for "ON" and "OFF" had to be 3 characters or less, and that if you couldn't do that, you should use "◯" and "|". And then we got translations like "ENCENDIDO" / "APAGADO". > I > ran around my house and could not find "◯" nor "|" on any switches (they are > either red spot for on, or blank for off). If there are countries that consistently use something other than ON/OFF or ◯/|, then we could add additional graphics, but note that this would still require you to file a bug rather than just translating appropriately in the .po file, because (a) the text in the switches is part of the SVG file, not something layered onto it afterward, so there needs to be a separate SVG created for each translation, and (b) there is no Unicode character for "red dot" anyway. (In reply to comment #8) > You will probably find a circle AND a bar crossing it: > http://www.google.cz/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=on+off+button > > In front of me, right now, I've got 7 of those. That's the IEC symbol for "button which toggles on/off" (which is used even in the US), as opposed to the ◯/|, which are for a switch with two hard-wired states.
(In reply to comment #9) > (In reply to comment #7) > > The main point is, as F Wolff wrote, this decision should be on l10n teams. > > Originally it was, and there was a big comment explaining in all caps that the > translations for "ON" and "OFF" had to be 3 characters or less, and that if you > couldn't do that, you should use "◯" and "|". And then we got translations like > "ENCENDIDO" / "APAGADO". Yeah, translators tend to ignore comments. I've been thinking if there is a way to catch these at compile time, but no pratical solutions so far. > If there are countries that consistently use something other than ON/OFF or > ◯/|, then we could add additional graphics, but note that this would still > require you to file a bug rather than just translating appropriately in the .po > file A comment suggesting this above the msgid would be nice.
I'm a Gnome user for years, and now I can't use the new shell due to hardware shortcomings. No problem actually, because I'm using Gnome 3 in fallback mode. But I have encountered the mentioned switches in gnome-tweak-tool, too. Somewhat odd, the new behavior. In fact, we could avoid translations completely, if we would place a checkbox here, as Gnome used it from the ancients on. It's fully sufficient here, and I can't see any advantage of the ON/OFF switches.
(In reply to comment #9) > (In reply to comment #7) > > The main point is, as F Wolff wrote, this decision should be on l10n teams. > > Originally it was, and there was a big comment explaining in all caps that the > translations for "ON" and "OFF" had to be 3 characters or less, and that if you > couldn't do that, you should use "◯" and "|". And then we got translations like > "ENCENDIDO" / "APAGADO". Yeah, well, I was defending the idea of "◯" and "|", but concerning "ENCENDIDO" / "APAGADO", that's what happens when 99% of the times programmers do not add translator comments; so don't be surprised. Cheers.
(In reply to comment #12) > Yeah, well, I was defending the idea of "◯" and "|", but concerning "ENCENDIDO" > / "APAGADO", that's what happens when 99% of the times programmers do not add > translator comments; so don't be surprised. Except that in this case there *was* a translator comment. The "all caps" mentioned by Dan ...
(In reply to comment #13) > (In reply to comment #12) > > Yeah, well, I was defending the idea of "◯" and "|", but concerning "ENCENDIDO" > > / "APAGADO", that's what happens when 99% of the times programmers do not add > > translator comments; so don't be surprised. > > Except that in this case there *was* a translator comment. The "all caps" > mentioned by Dan ... True that, and as I said, not the case *99% of the times*, that's why we, translators, sometimes miss that information. I don't think there is a need to keep focused on whether there is or there is not comments for translators in any bug report. Let's focus in the bug itself.
The issue of the plurals seem to be getting some attention in bug 639987. Now the time related strings seem to be the issue in this bug with the best impact/controversy ratio.
Hi there. Is this bug still present ?
Uuids: yes Plurals: fixed in bug 639987 toggle-switch-us vs. toggle-switch-intl: no, and it doesn't have a comment to explain what toggle-switch-us means. Time strings in power.js: not present any more Bluetooth strings that had to be split: not present any more
(In reply to comment #17) > toggle-switch-us vs. toggle-switch-intl: no, and it doesn't have a comment to I meant "yes" here as an answer to "is this bug still present". Sorry for the confusion.
(In reply to comment #17) > Uuids: yes > I've fixed this one. https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-shell/commit/?id=b1b81a267296019ac5681306733670ac7a215c46
Switches are now all plain without any words or symbols (that is, "us" vs. "intl" is gone as well).