On Nov 4, 2013, at 9:58 AM, Thomas Troesch <[email protected]> wrote:

> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, Nov 3, 2013 at 8:54 PM, John Ralls <[email protected]> 
> wrote:
> 
> 
> Anyway, the question isn't what's the right way to write out the amount in 
> words for each language, the question is whether the Wikipedia article cited 
> earlier in the thread is correct that checks are used only in the US, UK, and 
> Canada. If that's so, we don't need to localize it at all.
> 
> 
> I didn't get from the article that checks are only used in three places.   
> When I read from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheque
> 
> "In Finland, banks stopped issuing personal cheques in about 1993 in favour 
> of giro systems, which are now almost exclusively electronically initiated 
> either via internet banking or payment machines located at banks and shopping 
> malls" and "In most European countries, cheques are now rarely used, even for 
> third party payments" and "About 70 billion cheques were written annually in 
> the US by 2001"
> 
> I get the sense that international check usage ranges from non-existent, to 
> rare and being replaced by electronic banking systems, to very important.

I get that check usage ranges from nonexistent to rare and being replaced by 
electronic banking systems except in the USA. Geert adds that checks are still 
used in France. I’ve asked on the user list for more input from other 
non-English locales.

> 
> It seems to me that the words for printing checks are not simply language 
> dependent, but also depend on the political/banking system jurisdiction.  
> Gnucash currently has a check printing rule based on a Canadian requirement ( 
> date format ), and it has nothing to do with the language being English or 
> French.  I can see from the web that Mexico requires all spellouts to be in 
> capital letters.  I have no idea if this rule applies to Costa Rica, or 
> example.
> 
[SNIP]
> Sorry for my rambling.  My intuition tells me that something like the 
> following may be suitable for now:
> 1. Write plug-ins for number-to-check-words function for each language.
> 2. Develop a testing program so the function can be tested independently.
> 2. Load plug-ins based on locale setting if available.
> 3. Default to current function if locale based plug-in is not available.
> 
> This would require a collaboration between a translator and a programmer.  It 
> may be awkward, but would at least provide an orderly way forward for people 
> that are sufficiently motivated to get the function.  And hopefully locale is 
> sufficient for mapping to the correct function.

It would also require modifying the check-printing code to look for the plugin, 
load it, and use it. 

Unless there’s significant demand for it, I think we have more pressing 
requirements.

Regards,
John Ralls




_______________________________________________
gnucash-devel mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel

Reply via email to