Subject: Re: localization formats proposal
From: Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Jul 15 2001 - 22:22:46 CDT
--- Karl Ove Hufthammer <huftis@bigfoot.com> wrote: >
su 08 jul 2001 17:07:10, Rui Miguel Seabra
> <rms@greymalkin.yi.org>:
>
> > Notice I am using _ for choosing the shortcut
> character in
> > the menus,
>
> A good idea. Having to use & was really annoying
> (though using
> an XML editor, this wouldn't be a problem).
>
> > Original file:
> >
> > <AbiLocale app="AbiWord" ver="1.0"
> language="en-US"
> > fallback="true" enc="iso=8859-1">
>
> The character encoding used in an XML file is
> specified in the
> 'encoding' attribute of the XML declaration.
> Therefore, the 'enc'
> attribute is both unnecessary and wrong.
>
> The 'fallback' attribute should be a comma-separated
> list of
> locales.
>
> Is the 'app' attribute neccessary? If so, we should
> change the
> 'AbiLocale' to 'Locale'.
>
> And language should be 'locale'. Do not confuse
> locales and
> languages.
>
> > <strings>
> > <string id="DLG_Apply">Apply</string>
> > <string id="DLG_Break_Insert">Insert
> Break</string>
> > </strings>
>
> The original text *must* be present. If not, you
> have to manually
> look through hundred of strings to see if one of the
> has changed.
> And they do change. My suggestion:
>
> <string id="DLG_Apply">
> <original>_Apply</string>
> <translated>_Bruk</string>
> </string>
>
> > <tb id="AP_TOOLBAR_ID_FILE_NEW" value="New">
> > <icon>tb_new.xpm</icon>
> > <!-- this is not needed here since it's empty:
> > <tooltip></tooltip> -->
> > <status>Create a new document</status>
> > </tb>
>
> I would prefer:
>
> <tb id="AP_TOOLBAR_ID_FILE_NEW">
> <icon>tb_new.xmp</icon>
> <original-label>New</original>
> <translated-label>Ny</translated>
> <original-status>Create a new
> document</original-status>
> <translated-status>Opprett eit nytt
> dokument</translated-status>
> </tb>
>
> Perhaps we'll need a 'display' attribute too, for
> icons
> that are not need in some locales. (Note: *locales*,
> not
> languages. E.g, bidi may still be needed in the
> 'en-US' locale,
> though you'll never use in the 'en-US' language.)
>
> (And something similar for menus.)
>
> This may seem overly verbose, but it's very easy to
> update the
> translations this way, using XSLT. With 'update', I
> mean adding
> new strings from the 'en-US' file to the localized
> file(s), and
> marking changed text as 'fuzzy'. We can also
> generate (X)HTML
> reports from the (updated) locale file showing which
> strings need
> translation/updating.
>
> One important thing is that this way, there would be
> *no*
> technical difference between the 'en-US' locale and
> other locales.
> IME, having one locale be the 'default' locale
> (using built-in
> strings or something similar) is an disadvantage.
>
> > On the developers side, this would mean a slightly
> slower
> > startup of abiword,
>
> I read one article where the author had tried
> benchmarking the
> performance difference using a preparsed XML file in
> binary
> format, and parsing it on the fly. The surprising
> result was that
> the latter was actually faster. (I can probably find
> the article
> in question by digging through my overgrown bookmark
> collection,
> if anybody's interested.) Though this may not always
> be the case,
> I believe the cost of parsing the files at startup
> are truly
> minimal.
>
> > but since menus and toolbars won't be
> > builtin anymore (THEY ALL ARE),
>
> And we can distribute truly localized builds (with
> no 'en-US'
> strings). Any localized icons need to be included in
> all builds,
> though.
>
> Hmm, perhaps we can have 'locale packs', where all
> the locale info
> is stored in one (external) file. Then the installer
> can download
> the locales the user's most interested in.
One locale-related item seems to have been left out
of this discussion so far. That is spell checking.
If we're going to have a comma separated list of
fallback locales, spelling would benefit from this
too.
Australians and most English countries would rather
use en-GB then en-US when their own native dictionary
is not available.
Andrew Dunbar.
=====
http://linguaphile.sourceforge.net
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