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List:       kde-i18n-doc
Subject:    Re: translations on kde 3.3
From:       heiko.evermann () gmx ! de
Date:       2004-07-28 20:43:23
Message-ID: 200407282243.24009.heiko.evermann () gmx ! de
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Hi Diego, hi everyone,

I have just committed a fix in klocale to CVS. Now translations will only be 
considered if appname.mo exists. So this solves the problem that Diego had 
written about and that had started all the discussions. 

What I have *NOT* coded is the option in kcontrol that we had also talked 
about.
> > Suggestion: in kontrol center in country/region & language on the
> > language tab
> >
> > add a Group "translation handling" with a text and two radio buttons:
> > text:" "When the translation of a program into your favorite language is
> > incomplete"
> > radio button 1:"fill the gaps with translations drawn from Second/third
> > choice language, whereever possible."
> > radio button 2: "pick the first language into which the program is
> > partially translated and fill the rest with US-English"
>
> One objection..
> Why en_US?
> What if I want my applications in Hebrew and then  fallback into Spanish?

1) In principle such an option might be a good idea. The wording of 2) should 
be "pick the first language into which the program is partially translated 
and fill the rest with the default language of the application (usually 
US-English)" as an app that is not written in US-English would be rendered 
just the way it was written. For all our programs in the KDE CVS this is the 
case, but it does not have to be that way.
2) It would still not be possible to have a language sequence of e.g. Hebrew, 
Italian, English with a fallback from Hebrew to Spanish like in "I would like 
my app to be Hebrew. If the Hebrew translation is incomplete, you can fill it 
with Spanish and English, but just in case the app is not translated into 
Hebrew at all, I would prefer to have it all in Italian." That was how I 
understood Diegos last mail. I somehow doubt that this is something a big 
number of users really needs. If someone really likes Hebrew, Italian and 
English, why not just merge the translations. If that is not desirable, that 
means that the user is really fluent in English, so he could just use 
Hebrew/English in kcontrol. And if he/she wants to override the language for 
a certain program it is still possible to do e.g.
A) use Hebrew/English in kcontrol
B) launch a program with "KDE_LANG=es kcalc" to get the app in Spanish.
So I would say that it is not a showstopper not to have this feature.

However, it might be worth to have this option in kcontol nevertheless.

My problems with this:
1) I have no experience in programming kcontrol
2) I have no experience in handling KConfig
3) It is close to deep freeze and I think chances are high that I would break 
the translation module completely with some dumb bug. That would then be a 
real showstopper.
4) Our baby is overdue (from Friday) and will be born any day soon. 
summary: Unfortunately I am unable to program the switch in kcontrol that we 
discussed. I have already spent several evenings before the computer just to 
get KLocale fixed so that Hebrew still works fine for apps where the Hebrew 
translation was not started. Last Saturday my primary harddisk crashed. I had 
to reinstall everything and I had to hunt a bug in the string list iteration 
in KLocale. I really cannot go any further from here in KDE 3.3.

However if someone else volunteers, someone else could still extend the 
language handling with a switch in kcontrol/KConfig.

I am sorry that I cannot deliver more here, and I hope that You understand 
this.

I would be grateful if You try the fix whether it has other side effects that 
I do not know so far.

Kind regards,

Heiko Evermann
(KDE Low Saxon translation team)

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