From kde-edu-devel Mon Jun 17 16:51:51 2002 From: Scott Wheeler Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 16:51:51 +0000 To: kde-edu-devel Subject: Re: [kde-edu-devel] KVerbos and the Spanish buttons X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-edu-devel&m=102447397625053 On Monday 17 June 2002 06:40 am, Arnold Kraschinki wrote: > Hello, >=20 > I heared that some people complained about the Spanish buttons in that=20 > program. As far as I understood this persons think that this doesn't fit = to=20 > the KDE GUI rules. >=20 > At first I think it is a good feature of KDE that the user can change the= =20 > language and then all the menus and buttons are changing too. That's the= =20 > reason why I can understand them in some parts. And the buttons in Spanis= h=20 > might be a problem if during an event like linux tag the program is=20 presented=20 > to someone who cannot speak and doesn't learn the language. Well, again, here I go on a style rant. As I've mentioned before, one of t= he=20 most important things in KDE is consistency. As Waldo pointed out after my= =20 last style rant, our users appreciate it too. What that means in a case li= ke=20 this is that one application should not choose what it thinks is best=20 independent of the rest of KDE. As an example, we have a lot of applicatio= ns=20 geared towards language study, and all of the others use the default, i18n'= d=20 strings. For one application to break that consistency, even if it does he= lp=20 with the goals of the application, does not fit. If it was decided that this was helpful *all* of the language study=20 applications should do the same thing. I however think that is a bad idea,= =20 but that's a separate topic. This is a tough point, but sometimes, an application in KDE CVS has to do=20 something which may not be the most helpful for that application, but by wa= y=20 of being part of KDE it *must* stay consistent with the rest of KDE -- at=20 least by default. > But KVerbos isn't a program like an editor or a game or another common to= ol.=20 > It's purpose it to learn Spanish. And the persons who do so know what the= =20 > words on the buttons mean or they have a dictionary to look them up. Some= one=20 > who doesn't want to learn the meaning of these words doesn't want to lear= n=20 > Spanish either. > I think it is good to have buttons in Spanish because it uses the languag= e=20 > the learner wants to learn. Although it's a very small use. So the button= s=20 in=20 > Spanish are connected to the intention of the program to practice the=20 > language. It's an educational program. Actually, I agree with you here, and that is in fact why I often use the=20 German or Spanish language on my KDE desktop, but again, that is something= =20 that the user should choose, not the application developer. > Some people doesn't pay sufficient=20 > attention to this point. That's why I think there is no need to use i18n = in=20 > this occasion. I think in this case it's less important to follow the KDE= =20 GUI=20 > guidelines than to follow the intention of the program. No, it's really not. I'm sorry, but you can't throw out KDE conventions ju= st=20 because it you don't think they're relevant. In this case I think there ar= e=20 really two options -- try to get the convention changed, or make your=20 application follow the convention. =20 > As a compromise I will add in further versions the possibility to choose = an=20 > option with buttons that use i18n. But the default value will be Spanish. I would support the opposite. Make it by default use i18n and as an option= =20 allow it to be in Spanish. Even on this you should make sure that your=20 application is consistent with the i18n strings that are used in similar=20 Spanish applications. Again, I'm not trying to discredit KVerbos (in fact I wrote something simil= ar=20 many years ago when I was first learning Spanish), etc. It's just a matter= =20 of what is important for applications that are part of KDE. One of the=20 things that can be restrictive for application developers working on KDE is= =20 that you lose some control, but I, and I assume you do too, think it is wor= th=20 it. Again, something of apologies, I really don't like putting on my=20 big-mean-style-beast hat, but it is important. Nor is this an attempt to=20 stop the discussion; mostly just my opinion. Thanks, =2DScott _______________________________________________ kde-edu-devel mailing list kde-edu-devel@mail.kde.org http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-edu-devel