2011/9/3, Yuval Levy <[email protected]>: > I do see the positive aspects of > using gettext/poedit for the translation of applications. I fail to see > them > for the translation of long texts such as manuals and websites. > > Specifically for the Hugin website, I prefer HTML translation over a gettext > "managed" one because IMHO the unit of translation of a website is a page > while the unit of translation of an application is a message and gettext is > designed for that: translating messages.
I'd like to concur: I did a few translations (manuals and applications) and I hate the out-of-context-ness of systems like .po. Even in applications, not having context information cripples the translator's understanding so that he has to use generic catchall translations instead of properly suited ones. A web page is a text, not sequence of isolated sentences or paragraaphs, and this makes a huge difference. Looking at a po file, it is very difficult to get a sense of the flow of the text. And translating a text by snippets will inevitably lead sooner or later to poor translations. Often translating a text means rearranging it so that the end result may very well not be 1 for 1 sentence. Sometimes when translating, one merges 2 original sentences, or splits a sentence. Or even, sometimes it is better to swap sentences. Once the sentence level is done, I read the whole paragraph to check if the translation works, if it is fluid enough. Actually, I often translate whole paragraphs rather than sentences. It may seem more efficient to use gettext, but this efficiency has a hidden cost. OTOH, it is true that translating HTML means the translator should understand enough HTML in order not to break something or even what should be translated and what should not. -- Frederic Da Vitoria (davitof) Membre de l'April - « promouvoir et défendre le logiciel libre » - http://www.april.org -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Hugin and other free panoramic software" group. A list of frequently asked questions is available at: http://wiki.panotools.org/Hugin_FAQ To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/hugin-ptx
