On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 11:01 PM, Eben Eliason <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > The Indic translation teams (mostly the Indian teams) have > > traditionally kept accelerators unchanged, even if they had the option > > of translating them. I do not know the exact reasons the other teams > > had, but as far as the Bengali team was concerned, the three main > > reasons were > > > > 1. Difficulty in maintaining consistency of keyboard shortcuts > > (different translators used different acclerator for the same menu > > item in different applications, leading to confusion and chaos) > > 2. Lack of native language keyboards (we have very few physical > > "Bengali" keyboards with actual Bengali alphabets on them) > > 3. People are too much used to hitting Ctrl-S to save files - it's a > > habit we decided not to mess with. > > > > I guess 2 and 3 does not apply to the OLPC much. > > > > > > > > > Indeed 2 is not a problem. As for 3, We have always tried not to mess with > convention much unless doing so provided a considerably better experience. > With respect to our audience, its true that they won't know the conventions > used everywhere else, but we should weigh making things slightly more > natural, perhaps, to learn against their having to relearn everything should > they later use a conventional machine/OS. Learned muscle memory might be > better to have than proper mnemonic shortcuts (I understand I write this > having been spoiled by conventional shortcuts that are, in general, > mnemonic; on the other hand, half of the shortcuts I know in most of the > apps I use are completely -- at least apparently -- without any meaning...) >
I agree with you that we need to consider future needs of the student as well. Just out of curiosity, I decided to take a look at the manual of Sharif Linux (a Farsi GNU/Linux distribution) and judging from the screenshots, they seem to use non Latin-alphabet accelerators. So it may be a good idea to have the accelerators translateable and leave it to the language teams to decide what they want. Thanks, Sayamindu > - Eben > > > > > > > > On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 7:16 PM, Alexander Dupuy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > Tomeu Vizoso asks: > > > > > > > Users will switch keyboard layouts frequently? Cannot we just > > > > translate shortcuts to other characters in the cyrillic or arabic > > > > Layouts so they are used similarly to the latin one? > > > > > > I'm not talking about switching keyboard layouts (e.g. using > sugar-control-panel) but rather keyboards where the same keycap has both > Latin and Cyrillic/Arabic/Nepali/etc. letters - switching between the two > alphabets is done with the key under Enter that has multiply and divide sign > in the English layout. Users will mostly work with their native alphabet, > but will switch to Latin mode occasionally to type foreign names or terms in > Latin script, e.g. XO, Cambridge, Negroponte, and bilingual users may switch > for much more extended periods. > > > > > > At a minimum, accelerators should work in the native script mode (and > this can be done with localization), but it will be at least mildly annoying > if you are in Latin mode and none of the accelerators work without first > pressing the "alternate alphabet" key (and pressing it a second time > afterwards to go back to Latin mode). That's what I'd like to avoid, but > which requires extra support - either allowing a second (hidden) accelerator > code, or having the sugar library understand the keyboard layout and support > the extra mappings automatically. The latter is more work (and may not be > practical for non-XO keyboards), but is easier for activity developers and > localizers, and may be necessary in cases where a SCIM is in use. > > > > > > > > > > > > @alex > > > -- > > > mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Localization mailing list > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/localization > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > Sayamindu Dasgupta > > [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings] > > > > -- Sayamindu Dasgupta [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings] _______________________________________________ Sugar mailing list [email protected] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
