Re: lynx-dev proposed revisions for gettext (II)

[Webmaster Jim]

On Tue, Dec 01, 1998 at 10:00:04AM +0900, Henry Nelson wrote:
> What I've thought would be better, would be to put everything into the
> <TITLE> string, i.e., include the title and Lynx version number at the
> very top right of the screen, and remove the headline altogether.  That
> would add two more lines to the page; nice for those of us who have lots
> of options and want them all on a single page.
> The actual html would change from:
> <title>Printing Options</title>
> <h1>Printing Options (Lynx Version 2.8.2dev.7)</h1>
> to:
> <title>Printing Options (Lynx Version 2.8.2dev.7)</title>
> What do people think about this?  I won't be combining the two topics of
> formatting internal pages and adjusting gettext strings, and if I do end
> up doing both, they'll come over as two separate patches so they don't
> get confused.

I like having both a title and an H1 on pages, even if identical.
 
> A question for Jim, should we as Ismael suggests make the above two
> individual msgids, or should we try to separate and recycle them?  If
> "actions to take on the rendered document" and "Locally configured" were
> the msgids, theoretically they could be used in other situations, the
> latter for example in the D)ownload menu.

(Oops, just after I purged that thread, my name came up in it..) I think
it's better in the NLS/gettext context to have code tht looks like this:

  printf(gettext("Print Options: "));
  printf(gettext("Download, Cancel, LocalPrinter"));
  printf(gettext("For help press 'H'"));

so that each line can have one translation that is identical in other
places in the code. I don't think there are many opportunities to
compress the translations while keeping the code maintainable.

Ismael said:

> Another more important point is that strings shouldn't be split.
> Splitting strings may work in English but not in other languages with
> different structures. For instance, in your patch, `Locally configured
> "Print" actions to be taken on the rendered document:' and `"Print"
> actions to be taken on the rendered document:' should be separate
> strings. This is valid for all strings in Lynx.

I agree sentences or phrases should not be split. It would be acceptable
to separate different levels or clauses as above.

Tom has already commented that HTML tags need to be removed from
language strings (I tried to do that originally, but missed some):

  printf(gettext("<title>Print Options</title>"));

should be:

  printf("<title>");
  printf(gettext("Print Options"));
  printf("</title>");

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<http://www.cs.indiana.edu/picons/db/users/us/md/lib/bcpl/jspath/face.xbm>
Marvin the Paranoid Android says:
It's no good just pressing that.