[Xfce-i18n] should console messages be translated?

[Jasper Huijsmans]

2008/7/24 Leandro Regueiro <leandro.regueiro at gmail.com>:
> On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 9:04 AM, Kristjan Siimson
> <kristjan.siimson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> 2008/7/23 Nick Schermer <nickschermer at gmail.com>:
>>>
>>> How can a translator know if it's a console message or not? Indeed
>>> they can't. The string might even be used multiple times (in both
>>> console and gui). The only thing is, if you use error messages from
>>> (for exaple) glib, then they are translated. So it could result in a
>>> half translated message.
>>
>> Sure they can! There are various ways for commenting messages, at least one
>> created for specifically this purpose - separating the comment and string
>> with |, for example Tooltip|Create CD.
>
> IMHO, strings like Tooltip|Create CD lead the translators to
> confusion. Please use msgctxt for the context.

Agreed. Except that for some situations the English (GUI) text is the
same, but the translated texts may be different; In that case the only
way is to use the prefix method.

>
> About the discussed issue: translate that messages is good to help the
> users understand the problem, but if they try to search in the
> internet they didn't find nothing if they search with translated
> messages unless the official documentation also use the translated
> messages. You could include a numeric code in the messages to bypass
> that problem. Also the translators could translate the strings in an
> incorrect way, but this could happen with all the other translations.
>
> My suggestion is to make them translatables and make sure that the
> official docs have a refference to the translated messages, and the
> messages could include a numeric code to help.

Console messages should be regarded as non-user visible.  They are
like debug messages that a developer may request as a response to a
bug report.  Your alternative to use numeric code is interesting, but
I don't think it is really worth the effort.

-- 
 Jasper