Re: menu, translation, etc

[joost witteveen <joostje@cistron.nl>]

Je 1999/07/06(2)/13:07, Marco d'Itri montris sian geniecon skribante:
> On Jul 06, joost witteveen <joostje@cistron.nl> wrote:
>  
>  >But for now, I hope you like the progress being made so far.
> I don't. You haven't replied to my concerns.

I'm very sorry, I never seem to have gotten your reply.
I just checked the archives, and I'm now replying to that:


> >When the translating of menus comes up, gnome/kde automatically also 
>  >come up as they already have translations. So, why not use those?
>  >Well, for the above mentioned reasons: "cross-package" communication
>  >is pour to say the least in debian, and there is no way we are
>  >going to support many languages if every change has to go through
>
> Very, very bad. Most gnome/kde programs already have translations. Do
> you plan to override them? Or do you plan to prune unneeded translations
> from the menu package? 

I don't plan to do anything with them. They sit in their own
section, seperate from the Debian menu tree.

I'm talking about the Debian menu tree here, provided by the
menu entry files in /usr/lib/menu. None of those are translated.
Gnome has a different menu tree structure than debian, and probably
many other things different. If we keep our debian menu tree, then
we cannot directly use the GNOME translations (although they will
be very usefull to the translators).

> And most package names don't have to be
> translated, "The GIMP" is "The GIMP" in all languages.

I'm not sure what you are refering to. If it is to a particular
translation I made for Esperanto, then I would like you to ignore
any (particular) translations I made -- this is about the generalities,
not about how to translate stuff. (For the others: yes, I did
translate "The Gimp" into "La Gimp" -- but to me that seems irrelevalt)

>  >the maintainers. And it's very tough on the translators, as they
>  >have to communicate with many different maintainers.
>
> This is false. Maintainers already have to communicate with translators
> every new release to include updated message catalogs, while the titles,
> if needed, are to be translated once.

Yes, this is a valid point. I don't have a `bullet proof' argument
agianst it, but:
  - The message catalogs often come from upstream. In that case they
    need direct maintainer interference.
  - I (and others I've emailed with) feel that people want the Debian menu
    tree to be in their language now, rather than wait for the last package
    to be upgraded.

>  >So, I say that using the translation support from gnome/kde's menu
>  >entry files is not the right way in Debian.
>
> I don't agree. Most packages already come with a translated menu if
> there is something needing translation.

Well, then I would like you to point out to just one such package.
At the moment, the Debian menu structure really is static, and
there is no way to translate any entry into any language.
(except for menu-2.1, the new one).

It could be that you are talking about different menu's than the
Debian menu tree, generated by the menu package? 

>  >If there is noone saying this is a realy bad approach, I'd like
> This is a really bad approach.

OK, thanks for the responce. I'm probably not going to convince you,
so I'd really like others to voice their opinions.

If Debian-policy decides that the translations be in the menu entry
files, then I'll be able to add support for that in meny reasonably
quickly. 

But, I would just like to say why I think we shouldn't put the translations
in the menu entry files: that way the debian menu tree will basically
always be mixed-language (for at least some languages), and entries like 
"Dwww Konfiguratie"  will basically indefinately live alongside
"Lilo Config",   as some entries are translated while others are not.

Thanks,

joostje (please CC me while replying)