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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Fixing app typo's (was: Re: KDE 2.2 tagged)
From:       Adriaan de Groot <adridg () sci ! kun ! nl>
Date:       2001-08-06 11:51:07
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On Mon, 6 Aug 2001, Thomas Diehl wrote:
> Am Montag, 6. August 2001 11:07 schrieb Malcolm Hunter:
> > When can we resume typographical fixing then?
>
> Mainly in the HEAD branch (ie CVS default). In the KDE_2_2_BRANCH only
> if it's an important fix (eg important for the meaning of a string).

I was checking the translation of KPilot into dutch the other day, and
that showed me my app's strings in a setting I'd never seen them before:
as strings which have to convey a meaning, not just as inconvenient things
in an i18n() call in my code. I'd recommend this experience to any app
developer -- take a look at the message file of your app and see if *you*
still understand what's going on. Anyway, the messages SUCK. Ouch.

> Having said that I'd say we _could_ allow for a week or so of fixing
> typos and the like. But definitely no big consistency and brush up
> actions which would affect hundreds of strings. What do others think?

I'd like to go through and:

1) Add comments to ambiguous messages. I'm not quite sure how that works,
though. i18n("comment","string") ? Does that affect translations?

2) Remove bizzarre whitespace, such as
	msgid " (Timed out)"
	msgid ""
	"Couldn't start writing mailbody\n"
Does that introduce fuzzies, or whole new strings?

3) Fix up random capitalization errors and uses of ([Pp]alm)*([Pp]ilot)*
where they should all read "Palm". That *does* introduce new strings.
Maybe something for 3.0. I even noticed that Rinse translated "Pilot" into
"PalmPilot" in many places.

4) Fix up string-insertion woes in some strings. For example:
	msgid "Send bugs reports to "
obviously the code will add an email address to the end of that string,
which may not be grammatically correct for a lot of languages.

Which of these could I possibly put into 2.2.1 and which should I keep for
3.0?



-- 
+------------------------------+--------------------------------------------+
+ Adriaan de Groot             + Project: FRESCoS                           +
+ adridg@cs.kun.nl             + Private: adridg@sci.kun.nl                 +
+ Kamer A6020 tel. 024 3652272 + http://www.cs.kun.nl/~adridg/frescos/      +

 
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