GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 686090
l10n: 'Use for' messages are splitted
Last modified: 2021-07-05 10:58:37 UTC
From localization point of view, the following messages are disaster: #: ../src/goabackend/goaexchangeprovider.c:846 #: ../src/goabackend/goafacebookprovider.c:361 #: ../src/goabackend/goagoogleprovider.c:535 #: ../src/goabackend/goakerberosprovider.c:1475 #: ../src/goabackend/goawindowsliveprovider.c:370 msgid "Use for" msgstr "" #: ../src/goabackend/goaexchangeprovider.c:848 #: ../src/goabackend/goagoogleprovider.c:537 msgid "_Mail" msgstr "" #: ../src/goabackend/goaexchangeprovider.c:853 #: ../src/goabackend/goagoogleprovider.c:542 msgid "Cale_ndar" msgstr "" #: ../src/goabackend/goaexchangeprovider.c:858 #: ../src/goabackend/goagoogleprovider.c:547 msgid "_Contacts" msgstr "" #: ../src/goabackend/goagoogleprovider.c:557 #: ../src/goabackend/goawindowsliveprovider.c:377 msgid "_Documents" msgstr "" #: ../src/goabackend/goakerberosprovider.c:1477 msgid "Network _Resources" msgstr "" #: ../src/goabackend/goafacebookprovider.c:363 #: ../src/goabackend/goagoogleprovider.c:552 #: ../src/goabackend/goawindowsliveprovider.c:372 msgid "C_hat" msgstr "" This is because the messages are split. You should not split messages, because in other languages your approach could make a problem (f.e. the order of the message parts won't be 'Use for X' but 'For X use' or anything else). Even more importantly, in languages with rich inclination system (like in Belarusian or Russian) 'X' is translated differenty in case of 'X is used for' and 'Use for X'. So you should at least provide a clue to translators about how these second parts of the messages are expected to be used. You can either do it with translation comment or (better) with msgctxt context marker.
For the records: https://live.gnome.org/TranslationProject/DevGuidelines/Never%20split%20sentences Adding keywords: I18N, L10N, string
Would it be ok for you if we added msgctxt markers, or is it absolutely necessary to fix the split messages issue? The messages are split because we are generating a list. See https://live.gnome.org/Design/SystemSettings/OnlineAccounts Use for: Mail Contacts Calendar ...
For my language, msgctxt will be enough. Though I'm not sure about other languages. At least msgctxt will be better than what we have.
One of the patches in bug 707435 adds a translator comment for this, which might help to some extent. However the real solution would be not to split the strings in the first place. We can address that as part of bug 702345
GNOME is going to shut down bugzilla.gnome.org in favor of gitlab.gnome.org. As part of that, we are mass-closing older open tickets in bugzilla.gnome.org which have not seen updates for a longer time (resources are unfortunately quite limited so not every ticket can get handled). If you can still reproduce the situation described in this ticket in a recent and supported software version, then please follow https://wiki.gnome.org/GettingInTouch/BugReportingGuidelines and create a new ticket at https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-online-accounts/-/issues/ Thank you for your understanding and your help.