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List:       kde-look
Subject:    localization of UI (Re: UI feedback from a Linux newbie)
From:       Marko Samastur <markos () elite ! org>
Date:       2000-04-26 5:58:23
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Magnus Ihse wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 17 Apr 2000, Tom Hoferek wrote:
> 
> > Agreed. I haven't come across users that are confused by this, but the
> > affirmative nature of the tick or check certainly makes more sense than
> > the cross which has negative connotations.
> 
> Actually, this is culturally biased. Here in Sweden, ticks are
> unusual, and the cross is the normal way to mark a check box on a
> paper form. It was just recently that I learnt that this isn't so in
> the US.
> 
> Clarification: ticks is just fine, they too are obvious to swedes
> (although they might feel a bit "foreign", just like your funny
> american mailboxes on the email programs ;-)), but the cross
> does definitely not have any negative connotations.

I think this discussion wouldn't be necessary, if KDE implemented a
mechanism to localize non textual information in user interface. What I
mean is, right now, you can localize to your language only textual
information like menus and documentation (and even that not well,
because of the limitations of gettext utility), but you can't localize
information that is displayed in some sort of graphic context (like
icons or even checkboxes).

When I was working on localization to japanese of HP OpenView IT/O
program, we had the possibility to localize those things as well (but
even HP had a very awkward way of doing this) and it would be nice if
KDE went further with this. Parts of user interface, that are subject to
different interpretations in different cultures (I don't know how much
of UI this is) should be easily changeable. If I choose Slovenian as a
language, it could change those UI elements that need changing.

Right now, there is a workaround, but it's not nice. First, you must
design all elements, that should be different in your context, but this
can't be avoided and it's not much additional burden to localization
teams (I know, because I remember how much time I had to spend to
localize KDE 1.1 to slovene). Then you must change icons in sources and
rebuild the whole thing except the widget parts, where it's enough if
you create an appropriate widget theme. What you get is certainly a
localized version of KDE, but the one suffering from the same problems
if people want to change to a different language (in multinational firms
and organizations, where I've spent some of my time, this wasn't such a
rare occasion and there are also plenty of people here, who for some
reason prefer to work in english).

With a better localization framework, all this discussion might be
redundant.

Marko

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