Some advices about debconf i18n (was: Re: Help needed with debconf)
A bit out of topic and not helpful for your main problem, but please
find a little advice about the templates themselves...
First of all, please make them translatable.
man po-debconf will give you the needed information, but it's
basically a matter of prepending Choices and Description with "_"
Install the po-debconf package and then run "debconf-gettextize". This
will create the needed files in debian/po as well as slightly modify
your templates file.
Then, before uploading your package, please give translators a chance
to get the translations in by posting a request for translations in
debian-i18n@lists.debian.org with the debian/po/templates.pot file
attached. Then, just leave translators and translation teams a few
days (about one week) for working on it (some teams have a quality
process which involves reviewing the translations and takes some
time).
You will probably receive some PO files such as fr.po (that one you
will receive..:-))), nl.po, ja.po and so on.... Just put them in
debian/po and let dh_installdebconf do the job of building the
translated templates.
> Template: ttf-arphic-uming/variant
> Type: select
> Choices: Unicode, MBE, both
_Choices: Unicode, MBE, Both
(the capital letter will give a better consistency to the presentation)
> Default: Unicode
No initial "_" here as this is not translatable. debconf-gettextize
will add one : just remove it.
> Description: Which font variant do you want to install?
The Debconf Templates Style Guide, which is now part of the developers
reference suggest avoiding questions for select and string templates:
_Description: Font variant to install:
(note the colon.....)
Following this would give Debian debconf templates more general consistency.
> This font contains bopomofo extended glyphs, which are used to
> annotate chinese glyphs to show how the characters should be
> pronounced. These bopomofo extended glyphs are used for some
> minority languages, like Taiwanese and Hakka. They are mainly
^
Remove the trailing space here otherwise the template will have two spaces
> used in Taiwan.
> .
> There are two variants of these bopomofo
> extended glyphs in use, one which conformes to the Unicode standard,
> and one, called Modern Bopomofo Extensions (MBE), which aims to be
> easier to read and write.
> .
> The Unicode variant also contains the MBE variants encoded as TTF
> stylistic alternatives (SALT). As only few programs can support
> this feature, users who prefer to use the MBE glyphs should install
> the MBE variant instead of the Unicode one.
> .
> If you don't know what I'm talking about or don't intend to use
> those glyphs at all, choose Unicode.
Do no use first person in templates. As this is discouraged in init
scripts, this is discouraged as well in debconf templates.
I would rephrase the last sentence to something like 'If in doubt,
please select "Unicode".'
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