On 28.07.2021 07:58, Bret Johnson wrote:
> I saw Wilhelm's earlier comment and started thinking about some of its
> implications:
>
> i) NLS support: Is there anybody who can tell me if all DOS commands
> support [J(a)|Nein] or [O(ui)|N(on)] etc. instead of [Y(es)|N(o)]? If
> not, they should do it. As a translator you never know what to do.
>
>
> A major issue is that interactive items (like Yes/No or
> Abort/Retry/Fail) require two-way interaction. That is, in addition to
> displaying different things on the screen for the different languages,
> you also have different input keys that can respond to the different
> options (e.g., Y/N for English and J/N for German).
I remember two examples from the files I translated (see below). In
short, if the developer provides a field to translate the Yes/No or Y/N
answers, the translator barely notices there's something special to do
so I agree with Wilhelm -- that should be supported. The translator has
just to remember to translate the confirmation messages.
If, on the contrary, such fields aren't there I just keep the Y/N as is.
So it all depends on the translation catalog file.
Another example is apt-get in my GNU/Linux distro: when I throw in a
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
if there are updates, there's a confirmation prompt. In my case, when
the box is in French both y (for yes) and o (for "oui") work to confirm.
Although not perfect, that too may be a solution.
As for the examples, firstly xcopy:
# more confirmation messages, must start upper case,
# 3.2 to 3.5 must all start different:
3.1:Overwrite
3.2:Yes
3.3:No
3.4:Overwrite all
3.5:Skip all
which, in French, is translated as:
# more confirmation messages, must start upper case,
# 3.2 to 3.5 must all start different:
3.1:Écraser
3.2:Oui
3.3:Non
3.4:Tout écraser
3.5:Sauter tout
Then diskcopy:
#### reserved to condition for example yes, no, quit ####
0.0:Y
0.1:N
#### Space reserved to file diskcopy.c ####
(...)
1.29:image file (Y/N)?
1.30:disk (Y/N)?
1.31:Copy another disk (Y/N)?
which, in French, is translated as:
#### reserved to condition for example yes, no, quit ####
0.0:O
0.1:N
#### Space reserved to file diskcopy.c ####
(...)
1.29:fichier image (O/N) ?
1.30:disque (O/N) ?
1.31:Copier un autre disque (O/N) ?
>
> I've
> considered adding language support to some of my programs (if I could
> get someone to do the translations), but just designing a support
> structure to handle all the possibilities is pretty daunting.
DOS programs with source code? They include a free software license (as
in freedom)? You have your translator for French and Turkish. I can do
the l10n if you do the i18n part :-)
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