Marking strings for translation

[edscott]

I would like to add two points, if I may,

1- Whenever the message is to be a composition of strings, like 
_("cannot find: ") filename
 try to use a C format for translation, like _("cannot find: %s"), this
is to make is Chinese friendly. I read somewhere that in some short  
time, China will the biggest consumer of software. 

2- If the text is an error message, check to see if something in
strerror(errno) will do. This will get translated without any extra
effort, cutting down the translation table.

regards,

Edscott

El mié, 25-08-2004 a las 13:59, Jasper Huijsmans escribió:
> Hey all,
> 
> I have been updating the Dutch translations and there were a few things 
> I'd like to mention. These are of course opinions, not objective truths.
> 
> 1. Can we try to avoid putting markup in translations? E.g., 
> <b>Workspace</b> and <i>Workspace</i> are not really different ...
> 
> 2. When a translator has to use copy/paste a lot, there may be room for 
> improvement. E.g, in the shortcut editor: Move to workspace 1, Move to 
> workspace 2, Move to ... ;-)
> 
> 3. Using too short sentences are hard to translate without context. For 
> instance "printing", I think either that string should be expanded, or a 
> comment added above the statement, so that is will show up in the po file.
> 
> 4. We're doing pretty well here, but for technical terms and format 
> strings a comment explaining the context can be very useful.
> 
> 5. Consistent use of semicolon, question mark, exclamation mark. 
> Sometimes we add a space, sometimes we don't. Probably we should not add 
> the space, that's how it's done in normal English texts (corret me if 
> I'm wrong). Exclamation marks should probably never be used (no shouting).
> 
> 6. Consistent terminology, this is hard and I'm often quite uncertain 
> about the right words to use. E.g., options, settings, preferences, 
> properties.
> 
> Ok, well, it's nothing really big, just something to think about every 
> once in a while. Better not go and change too many strings now anyway, 
> because of the freeze. I just thought I'd write it now, before I forget 
> again.
> 
> cheers,
> 	Jasper
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