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List:       kde-i18n-doc
Subject:    Re: Untranslatable stuff in Korganizer
From:       Chusslove Illich <caslav.ilic () gmx ! net>
Date:       2004-06-25 17:09:42
Message-ID: 200406251909.45274.caslav.ilic () gmx ! net
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> [: Hasso Tepper :]
> There is several other places in KDE GUI where strings from several 
> places have to form logical sentences or smth like this, but these 
> rules are different in different languages.

I must immediately say that I cannot think of any language independent 
solution to this problem within current framework (whereas language 
dependent solution would be, of course, to try making it look "the least 
ugly"), I can just do some philosophical jibbering :)

The basic problems when doing this combobox-sentence-constructions is the 
same problem translator encounters when programmer concatenates message 
parts arbitrarily (the no-no thing according to guides for programming 
with i18n in mind), thus devoiding translator of full context. 

Therefore, programmer should never interlock active interface elements 
(like combo boxes) and sentence structure. He should instead get the 
information from user, and then form a proper sentence. In this example 
from KOrganizer, say, on each change of any of: number of years, month, 
day of the week, ordinal number of that day in the month, programmer would 
update message displayed in the interface using string:
 
i18n("Repeat every %1 year(s), on %2 %3 of %4")
    .arg(years).arg(ordinal).arg(day).arg(month)

On the other hand, I cannot think of any general and yet ergonomical enough 
way to always separate active interface elements and sentences. Anyway, 
attached to this message are two examples that I came up with (just some 
shoddy GIMP work :) considering this problem in KOrganizer, both suffering 
from said ergonomical, and possibly programming problems (I know next to 
nothing about KDE programming).
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