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Re: New debconf question for fontconfig-config package



Laurent Bigonville wrote:
> Template: fontconfig/hinting_style
> Type: select
> __Choices: None, Slight, Medium, Full
> Default: Slight
> _Description: Automatic hinting style (system default):

The fact that it's talking about setting a system default isn't
mentioned again.  Extra details like that should probably go in the
"expanded" version of this prompt in the long description rather than
being crammed into the synopsis.

>  Please select the preferred automatic hinting style.

The text here is is all good, except for the way that it doesn't
mention fonts until the second paragraph.  Just to make life easier
for people who see this prompt halfway through a dist-upgrade and know
nothing about the subject, I'd recommend

  _Description: Automatic font hinting style:
   Please select the preferred automatic font hinting style to be used as
   the system default.

>  .
>  The hinting style is the amount of font reshaping done to line up to the grid.
>  Slight will make the font more fuzzy to line up to the grid but will be better in
>  retaining font shape, while Full will be a crisp font that aligns well to
>  the pixel grid but will lose a greater amount of font shape. Slight is the
>  default setting.
>  .
>  To revert to the pre-2.12 behavior, select Full.

I'd put the different values in quotes throughout -

   The hinting style is the amount of font reshaping done to line up to the grid.
   "Slight" will make the font more fuzzy to line up to the grid but will be better
   in retaining font shape, while "Full" will be a crisp font that aligns well to
   the pixel grid but will lose a greater amount of font shape. "Slight" is the
   default setting.
   .
   To revert to the pre-2.12 behavior, select "Full".

But this makes me think: does this really allow for the possibility of
these names being localised?  The leading underscores on "__Choices"
mark it as material to be translated, and I'd expect it to be
accompanied by a set of equivalent "underlying" values in a
"Choices-C" field - something like
  
  Type: select
  __Choices: None, Slight, Medium, Full
  Choices-C: hintnone, hintslight, hintmedium, hintfull
  Default: hintslight

And then have all the configuration logic working on the C versions.

If that's *not* happening then translators will need to be warned to
treat the Choices values as verbatim strings in English by way of
fiddly little comments like

  #flag:translate:3

Or something.  Unfortunately none of this seems to be documented
anywhere... you'd probably find more expertise on debian-i18n.
-- 
JBR	with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
	sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package


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