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List:       kde-i18n-doc
Subject:    Re: Language fall-back
From:       Heiko Evermann <Heiko.Evermann () gmx ! de>
Date:       2004-05-14 22:57:59
Message-ID: 40A54EF7.40600 () gmx ! de
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Hi Malcolm,

>On Friday 14 May 2004 22:52, Heiko Evermann wrote:
>  
>
>>The strange result is that we get English phrases in programs where we
>>do have an incomplete nds file in all those gaps that we haven't
>>translated into Low Saxon so far. Our hope was that in those cases as a
>>fall-back the German translations would be shown.
>>    
>>
>
>I don't understand how it could fall back to German? If you have an incomplete 
>nds po file, how could you have a complete German one?
>
1) chose 3 languages in kcontrol: Low Saxon, German, English (in that order)
2) consider a file like kdelibs.po
3) imagine that "network" is translated
as "Nettwark" in nds/messages/kdelibs/kdelibs.po
and as "Netzwerk" in de/messages/kdelibs/kdelibs.po
We would want to see "Nettwark" in a program that uses the string "network"
4) imagine a string "device" in kdelibs.po
translated as "Gerät" in de/messages/kdelibs/kdelibs.po
but untranslated in nds/messages/kdelibs/kdelibs.po because we have not 
translated this string into Low Saxon.
If we now have a program that uses the string "device", we would be 
happy to see the German string "Gerät" appear,
as we specified in kcontrol that we (as the user) speak Low Saxon, 
German and English. As Low Saxon and German
are close cousins, we would not mind that for the moment and we might 
translate "device" into Low Saxon once we
have made up our mind about the correct spelling of 
"Reedschop/Reedschap/Reedschapp/Reedschopp" which we
could use for Low Saxon.
5) Unfortunately we see the English "device", even though KDE knows that 
we understand German as well, and even though in the German po-file 
"device" is translated.

The German po-files (lang code "de") usually are quite complete, so 
there would be no reason to bother the user (who might understand German 
and Low Saxon quite well (but not English) with an English text, just 
because this one msgstr happens to be untranslated in 
nds/messages/kdelibs/kdelibs.po even though this entry is translated in 
de/messages/kdelibs/kdelibs.po

I hope that now the problem is described in sufficient detail?

I had thought that this is the way things work, when you pick several 
languages in kcontrol. Does it, or doesn't it?

Kind regards,

Heiko

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