[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: Translating NEWS.Debian?



On Fri, Mar 19, 2004 at 06:54:13AM +0100, Christian Perrier wrote:
> (please keep -i18n Cc'ed...and possibly answer there)
> 
> Quoting Chip Salzenberg (chip@debian.org):
> > I'm in the process of moving some debconf notes into NEWS.Debian to
> > fix nfs-utils bug #228365, "debconf abuse".
> > 
> > However, I'm a bit concerned that non-English-speakers will be unable
> > to read NEWS.Debian since there is, AFAIK, no process in place to
> > translate it.  Have I missed something, or do we need another (!)
> > translation project?
> 
> There is no strong infrastructure for translating these files, similar
> to the one we now have for debconf templates and program translations
> (also know as "Denis pages" : http://people.debian.org/~barbier/intl/l10n/po-debconf/).
> 
> So, having NEWS.Debian.xx files is for sure possible, but I'm not
> aware of tools for using them transparently nor any infrastructure for
> handling translations (no gettext system around them...).

I may have a look at this in the near future. I have some idea of how to do
so (once po4a hits unstable), but no time to implement them.

> Let's imagine a new priority for debconf templates : "news". 
> 
> Or maybe a special name like xxxxxx/news in templates, never
> explicitely called by maintainer scripts.
> 
> Such templates could then be displayed optionnaly by debconf when
> dpkg-reconfigure is run....Of course, we would need a new debconf
> option for displaying these notes or not (with a default to not
> displaying them).

My idea (if I don't make NEWS.Debian translatable directly) would be to make
a new debconf template type called 'news', along with note, select and such.
It would not have a "Default" field, but a "Version" one, indicating the
limit to cross (from before that version to after it) to get the template
displayed.

This idea is kind of implemented in some packages, like elinks, which
contains this in its config script:
version=$2
if [ -n "$version" ] && dpkg --compare-versions "$version" eq 0.3.20020711-1
then
  db_text medium elinks/warn-cookie_expire
fi
  
But I fear that this specific implementation is fundamentally broken since
the second argument of the config script is the "installed-version",
according to debconf-devel(7). But is it the version to be installed, or the
version already installed???

In one case, this sniplet is a good candidat to change most of the current
debconf abuse, and in the other case, we need some love from debconf (like a
news template type).

Bye, Mt.

-- 
No, I'm not going to explain it.
If you can't figure it out, you didn't want to know anyway...
   --- Larry Wall

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: Digital signature


Reply to: