Re: Improving the translation of questions with choices (Was: a couple of aptitude queries :))

[Ruben Porras <nahoo@inicia.es>]

El lun, 25-04-2005 a las 14:04 +0200, Jacob Sparre Andersen escribió:
> Clytie Siddall wrote:
> > Eugeniy Meshcheryakov wrote:
> 
> > >> I've translated "Yes" and "No" separately in this file,
> > >> but I haven't yet seen a translation for Y and n. Does
> > >> this mean I should not translate this to the equivalent
> > >> in my language? [C/k]
> > >
> > > It looks like aptitude expects answers Y/N/D/V/S/I/C/+/-/=/E/? here 
> > > :-).
> > > I think you should not translate choices.
> > 
> > Pity: it's confusing for the user, too, where some apps.
> > do translate such a choice, and others don't...
> 
> Wouldn't it be better, if the strings _showing_ the choices
> were excluded from the .pot msgids?  That way there wouldn't
> be so much doubt - and less risk of errors - when
> translating.

You can't translate them if they are not in the .pot msgids, which is
better in this case since we can't translate them. I don't understand
how this is related to the next example.

> For example following this pattern:
> 
>    # Yes (default, single key)
>    msgid "Y"
>    msgstr ""
> 
>    # No (single key)
>    msgid "n"
>    msgstr ""
> 
>    # Help (single key)
>    msgid "?"
>    msgstr ""
> 
>    msgid "Continue? [%options]"
>    msgstr
> 
> Then the program could compose the contant of "%options"
> based on what is actually the options, and which keys
> actually are accepted for these options.

The best is allowing the translation, but explaining which patterns
exclude each others. Something like:

 # Don't choose the same translation for the next characters, all of
 # them are part of the same menu (Y/N/D/V/S/I/C/+/-/=/E/?)
 # Yes (default, single key)
  msgid "Y"
  msgstr ""

 # No (single key)
 msgid "n"
 msgstr ""

 # Help (single key)
 msgid "?"
 msgstr ""

 msgid "Continue? [%options]"
 msgstr

If nobody does it sooner, I'll see if I can fix it myself the next week.