On 7/25/06, Abel Cheung <abelcheung gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/18/06, Christian Rose <menthosgnome.org> wrote:
> > Behdad, this is about http
://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=347110
> > -- it was only recently that I discovered that you
have included a
> > section about markup to http://l
ive.gnome.org/GnomeI18nDeveloperTips :
> >
> > "Following is a list of examples that need
to be marked for
> > translation, but were not in some cases:
> > [...]
> > '<b>%s</b>': That is an innocent way
to mark something to make it
> > boldface in the interface, to emphasize importance
or make it a
> > header. But not every language has a concept of
modern boldface
> > typefaces, or even if it has such fonts, they may
not be the preferred
> > font for such kind of emphasis."
> >
> > So are you suggesting that developers include the
surrounding markup
> > in the translateable message, in case you may need
to change it for
> > Persian for rendering purposes?
>
> My guess is that they are just reluctant to changing
anything
> not visually beneficial, not that they have already
foreseen
> the problem. But to make an excuse, this is a good
> one, especially when what Behdad said is valid. I have
been
> bitten by this kind of markup/font issues myself.
>
> Due to absense of freely available boldface Chinese
font, I
> have seen somebody translate things like:
>
> msgid "<b>%s</b>"
> msgstr "<i>%s</i>"
>
> in order to distinguish it from normal text.
>
> Of course in most cases the proper 'fix' is to have a
boldtype
> font. But creating a boldface font is not always that
easy,
> when one is talking about complex scripts that consists
of
> at least hundreds or thousands of glyphs; and it needs
quite
> some human horsepower as well, which may not be
available for
> newly available languages in F/OSS world.
I understand that problem, but I for sure don't agree that
this is the
proper way to fix it, as this hack, that is, gratiously
including
surrounding markup inside the translateable message content,
causes a
lot of problems for all translators. As a translator you
want to
translate the *content*, not the surrounding presentation. I
don't
care whether the words will be written on a billboard, a
folder, or
on-screen, the words will be the same. As Clytie explained:
> I support you. Not only is it a problem, one more thing
that can
> break, but it's one more difference preventing exact
matches using
> msgmerge.
>
> I spend way too much time changing fuzzy strings like
this:
>
> ,fuzzy
> msgid "<b>Preferences</b>"
> msgstr "Tùy thích"
>
> to
>
> msgid "<b>Preferences</b>"
> msgstr "<b>Tùy thích</b>"
>
> simply adding, modifying or removing formatting to
match the original
> string. The actual text is fine.
>
> I really don't see it as our job to adjust formatting.
I would indeed
> prefer to concentrate on the actual translation.
Here are some ways to solve the problem of bad rendering:
1) Fix the fonts. Agreed, not an easy task.
2) Solve the problem at the Pango level. Instead of
encouraging the
use of <b> and <i> tags, add abstract
<strong>, <em> tags/attributes
or some such, allowing for different interpretations for
different
scripts. If we know that boldface fonts for Persian always
suck,
<strong> can have a different representation for
Persian script.
Then the HIG and other such specifications can specify these
attributes instead of a particular font style.
And here's how to solve the (ab)use of using surrounding
PangoMarkup
inside translateable messages:
3) Make gtk+/Pango have support for *attributes* instead of
forcing
everyone to use PangoMarkup. If I want a label to be bold,
italic,
smaller, or larger, I as a developer should be able to
simply set
attributes to that effect. Right now, it's too common to
see something
like this:
msgid "<span size=\"xx-large\">Bug
Buddy</span>"
msgstr "<span
size=\"xx-large\">Bug
Buddy</span>"
msgid "<span weight=\"bold\">Date
& Time</span>"
msgstr "<span
weight=\"bold\">Datum och
tid</span>"
msgid "<b>Date & Time</b>"
msgstr "<b>Datum och tid</b>"
msgid "<span
size=\"medium\"><b>No
file</b></span>"
msgstr "<span
size=\"medium\"><b>Ingen
fil</b></span>"
msgid "No file"
msgstr "Ingen fil"
Often, you will have duplicated messages in the same file,
just with
different markup!
If gtk+/Pango and libglade would make it possible for
application
writers to set *attributes* for these things instead of
having to
resort to PangoMarkup, all problems would be solved.
Christian
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