[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: About naming of apps in .desktop files
From:       Thomas Diehl <thd () kde ! org>
Date:       2001-11-25 21:24:38
[Download RAW message or body]

Am Sonntag, 25. November 2001 18:48 schrieb Christoph Cullmann:

> > You are mixing things up. With the proposed solution names like
> > "KWrite" or "Noatun" will not be translated in most languages, of
> > course. (These are only there at the moment due to the crude mixture of
> > program names and descriptions. And that's what we want to get rid of,
> > no question about that.) Exceptions are imaginable for some languages
> > with non-latin alphabets. I guess most of them prefer sticking to the
> > Latin characters for app names but they should have a chance to
> > transcribe the names in their alphabets. CCing to kde-i18n-doc,
> > therefore.
>
> K, but at the moment there are even translations for languages with latin
> 1 code, which should be dropped (the are very funny, but ;))

Hmm, just in case the above was still not clear enough: I'm all for dropping 
"Erweiterter Texteditor" as translation for "KWrite". No question about 
that. (The original string "Advanced Text Editor" wasn't my idea either.) 
Currently the KMenu is a messy mixup of descriptions and program names. 
And we always wanted to clear this up. This is what this whole discussion is 
about about. I think everybody will agree on this.

> But thats the name of the app. Example: KControl (Systemkontrolle),
> KBattleship (Schiffe versenken) would be the right way to handle them.

Sorry, I still think you are mixing things up. "KControl" is _not_ the name 
of the program. It is the name of the executable. An while it may be 
practical to know the name of the executable it is not the name that users, 
magazines or books should use in order to refer to the program. Or why do 
we have this bold header "KDE Control Center" in the main window? (And why 
did we make it translatable?)

In my view, there are the following elements the user may need info about:

1.  The name of the executable (kcontrol)
2. The name of the program as it is meant to appear everywhere 
(KDE Control Center -- do we really have to discuss this?)
3.  A short description what the thing actually does (Center for KDE 
settings which in this case is not really necessary)

The main problems are that sometimes the executable and the name are 
identical (except the spelling: KMail <-> kmail) while sometimes they are 
not (KDE Helpcenter <-> khelpcenter). Sometimes the name is in itself a 
description (KDE Control Center), sometimes it is not (KAB).

As for the descriptive names: A "Helpcenter" which does not have the 
_translated_ word "help" in its name is not nearly as helpful as it could 
be. Same with the Control Center and a few other things. Also "Center" is 
simply a spelling mistake in British English (which is still the official 
flavor of the language in about all countries except the US). In British 
English it has to be "Centre". Also there _might_ be teams who want to 
transcribe app names in their non-latin alphabets. Therefore, the 
translation teams must have a chance to edit the name.

> The real name should be visible for the user (k, sometimes the are very
> close to the thingy the programs do in english, but a normal user should
> get a hint how the real program is named, for example to launch it from
> console, or to just be able to talk about it, or does the people say: i
> like m$'s wordprocessing app very much ? no, they say : I like ms Word )

Sure. But the name of the executable is _not_ "ms Word", it's "winword.exe". 
And according to your logic they should have something like "winword.exe 
(MS WordProcessor)" in their start menu. This is certainly not something 
users would appreciate. And MS also does not say "control.exe (Windows 
Control Panel) either but they only give the localized name ("Windows 
Systemsteuerung" in German). And I think they do this for a reason. Mere 
descriptive names of system functions should be understood on first sight. 

International users should not have the impression that they work work on 
a badly translated US system.

> We need to make the real names of a app more visible to be recognized, or
> even in some years the normal enduser won't know the name of its favorite
> app (I speak much with other normal endusers using kde since 1.1, but
> most of them ask me what konqueror is, if I mention this name, I must
> first explain: uh, thats the webbrowser in kde to get the "Ah ha" effect
> ;==)

Sure. I'm afraid we need all three of the above (except if the name is an 
description in itself which probably will be translated anyway).

Maybe we should provide the program name (with the freedom to translate 
merely descriptive stuff and widely used game names) and show the 
executable as additional info in the tool tip. (Lots of this kind of info 
in the tool tips for Windows XP, BTW: author names, last updates etc.)

Regards,

Thomas


-- 
KDE translation: http://i18n.kde.org/
Deutsche KDE-Uebersetzung: http://i18n.kde.org/de/

[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]