Brian Kirsch wrote: > On Jul 25, 2007, at 8:44 AM, Heikki Toivonen wrote: >> I think there is some misunderstanding here. I just tried this with the >> Swedish localization, and it works. Here's what I did: I unzipped the >> sv.egg, Changed translated string in the .po file (&Arkiv for &File >> menu) and installed it. Pressing Alt+A opens the Arkiv menu just fine, >> even though the English original &File does not even have letter A. > > My point was that having the "shortcut" in the string forces the > localizer to > have to use a letter in string for that "shortcut". What if &F was the > standard way > to access the file menu item in a specific locale yet the letter "F" was > not in the > translated word for "File"? > > By having the "shortcut" in the string we are limiting > localizers ability to provide the best user experience for that locale.
No. The mnemonic MUST be part of the string. That is the way it is done. You can't have Alt+F open the &Tiedosto menu for a Finnish language application. This has been the standard as long as I have been programming, so I am somewhat curious where the need to do something different comes from... >> These mean something in the English language, something that is related >> to the original meaning of the word and the function in Chandler. I >> think localizers need to find reasonable equivalents in their languages >> for these important terms. If they don't get translated, these things >> will stand up like a sore thumb in a localized Chandler, and make it >> harder for people who don't know English to use the application. Let me >> put it this way: what would you think if your email application had a >> button that said "Get 汉语/漢語" instead of "Get Mail"? > > That is really not a fair comparison. I don't see how that is not a fair comparison. When email was invented, the developers had to decide on terminology. They decided to call these bits "electronic mail". And people who translated that to different languages chose to translate the terms as well, not use them as is. It is the same thing with us. We have somewhat innovative concepts in Chandler and had to come up with descriptive terms for them. It makes perfect sense for localizers to come up with equivalent terms. > Do we localize the word "Chandler" or "Open Source Application Foundation"? These are names, and names are typically not translated. However, like I explained in an earlier message, these are really part of branding, and there are situations where rebranding makes sense. For some famous examples, you can think about Mozilla rebranded as Netscape, and Firefox rebranded as Iceweasel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceweasel). > Yup that is why I am advocating not using mnemonics in strings if we can > come up > with a better solution. Like I said I would need to do some Wx research but > I imagine there is a easy way to assign a "shortcut" to a widget in code > that > does not have to correlate to the widget string label. > > With the addition of translator comments in Python code (0.7.1) we could > provide context in the Chandler.pot as to which "shortcut" applies to > which action / msgid. > > This also eliminates having three different definitions of the same string > in our Chandler.pot just because a different mnemonic is assigned for each. I believe it would be a bad idea to do something unusual with mnemonics. There is a long history of how they are used, and we should just follow suit. > Getting back to the three definitions (which is a real use case in our > Chandler.pot), > what if the translated string only had two letters?The Swedish word for > "New" is "Ny". > If you need three different mnemonics and you only have two letters then > you have > reach a quagmire :) That is the way it is with mnemonics. -- Heikki Toivonen
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