Hi, Jonathon!
Thanks for your reply.
On Mon, Jul 16, 2007 at 10:14:29PM +0000, jonathon wrote:
> Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> >Open Office 1.1.3 on Debian "Sarge" GNU/Linux, Gnome 2.8.3.
> I realize that the official motto of Debian is "We will
> release no code before its time".
;-)
> OOo 1.1.3 is several years old. I'd recommend upgrading to
> OOo 2.2.1. If you don't have the hardware requirements to
> run that, then upgrade to OOo 1.1.5 security-patch.
Hmm. I've got a PC with a 1.2GHz Athlon, and 768Mbyte RAM. I _hope_
that's enough. I ran a WP, a good one, on my 8MHz Atari ST with 1Mb RAM.
;-)
> > When I click on "help" I get the following rude message:
> >"The requested document does not exist in the database !!".
> That is the default message when OOo can not find a file it
> needs, to respond to a user request.
[ .... ]
> >I would, at the very least, expect the message to tell me the name of
> >the missing file
> And create additional obstacles for the l10n/i18n teams? OOo is an
> extremely difficult program to localize. [There is are a number of
> solid reasons why it is suggested that l10n teams have lots of
> experience with other projects, before tackling OOo.)
OK, fair point. But, yes, I think in this particular instance it would
be reasonable to expect the filename (and path). How much more difficult
is it really to translate
sprintf (s, "Couldn't find the file %s.", filepath);
than
strcpy (s, "The requested document does not exist in the database !!");
into however many languages? That's not intended as a rhetorical
question, by the way - I know next to nothing about i10n/i18n, apart from
how to spell them. Keeping the filename secret in these error messages
causes widespread pain and suffering, both to me (and an unknown number
of other people suffering the same thing) and to you and your colleagues,
who have to field complaints which are less than totally respectful.
What _is_ "the database", by the way?
[ .... ]
> The most common reason for the omission of the help file, is that it
> has not been translated into the language that the UI is in.
That surely doesn't apply to me; my whole system, including OO, is
installed in English.
> The second most common reason for them not being included, is that they
> weren't ready when the program was built.
<Resists the temptation to add a pointedly sarcastic reply.> Would it
not perhaps be a good idea to include the help file in the "lowest common
denominator" language (i.e. English) in such a case?
I still don't know where this help file should be installed. I don't
even know if it's a single file, or whether it's a directory. If I knew
its name, I could search for it on my system in case Debian had somehow
installed it "in the wrong place", and move it to the right place; or
perhaps notice that there'd been an error while installing it ("couldn't
find bunzip2", perhaps), and fix it. Failing to find it there, I could
search the Debian installation DVD and install it "by hand". Being
totally stumped, I just feel helpless, frustrated and angry - and pretty
negative about OpenOffice, even though the problem's more likely to be in
Debian's installation stuff rather than OO itself.
> jonathon
--
Alan Mackenzie (Ittersbach, Germany).
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