Alan Mackenzie wrote:

> be reasonable to expect the filename (and path).  How much more difficult
<< text deleted>>
> into however many languages?  That's not intended as a rhetorical

I quit tracking localizations for OOo when they hit 100.
Assuming they are keeping pace with when I did track them,
there probably are close to 200 localizations of OOo.  [Not
all of them are official.  Several them are unlikely to be
acknowledged on the official OOo website.]

> 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

As a programmer, you'll see the string <<  sprintf (s,
"Couldn't find the file %s.", filepath);>>
As a translator, you'll see the string "Couldn't find the
file".
As a user, you'll see the string "Couldn't find the file
blahlblahblah."  In English that makes sense. In some
languages (noun class languages, for example), it would be
utter nonsense. For evidentiary grammar languages, the whole
sentence changes, depending upon why it could not be found.

With "The requested document does not exist in the database
!!", you can translate it into umpteen languages, without
worrying about the translation being inaccurate.

The two bangs at the end of the string are probably
artefacts of the translation tool kit that was used. OOo
requires message strings to be a specific length, so
something other than a white space is added to preserve that
message length.

> That surely doesn't apply to me; my whole system, including OO, is
> installed in English.

It might.  One of the versions of OOo - English (ZA) omitted
the help system because it hadn't been translated into
English (ZA).

There were some major errors in the translation into English
(UK).

> not perhaps be a good idea to include the help file in the "lowest common
> denominator" language (i.e. English) in such a case?

OOo 2.0.3-English(ZA)
OOo 2.0.3-English(GB)
OOo 2.0.3-English (US)
I don't remember if any more versions in English were
distributed.

There has been at least one release in English(CA).
I'm not sure how far along OOo English(India), and English
(Singapore) is.

IOW, English isn't a common denominator language. OTOH,
given the influence of Hollywood, I suspect that English
(Hollywood) is the closest dialect to being universally
understood.

xan

jonathon

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