Re: [Synaptic-devel] Plural forms and translation

[Panu Matilainen]

On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Sebastian Heinlein wrote:

> Am Fr, den 30.01.2004 schrieb Panu Matilainen um 10:14:
> 
> > It's an internal error, sure, but do they actually *have* to be cryptic?
> > I think for example this could happen with a CD-ROM gone bad which is 
> > just "**** happens" situation, the error message could just as well be 
> > something like "Failed to access %s" which is much more understandable by 
> > non-hackers.
> 
> Your suggested change is in.

Thanks. While at it, there's the other "Stat failed" in 
common/rpmindexcopy.cc which could be changed similarly as well.

> 
> > > 
> > > > #: common/indexcopy.cc:89
> > > > msgid "Internal Error: Couldn't fork gzip. Please report."
> > 
> > ..and this could be "Unable to start helper process (gzip)" or something 
> > like that. Failure to fork is surely a rare condition but it *can* happen 
> > and has little to do with synaptic itself but things like running out of 
> > system resources.
> 
> Your suggested change is in.
> 
> > > > #: common/rpackage.cc:773
> > > > msgid "package is/will not be installed"
> > > 
> > > Internal error, no need for translation.
> > 
> > ...and if internal errors are not to be translated these should be marked 
> > as such when found, I think.
> 
> You are right. But I don't want to do bigger code changes.

If people think it would be good idea to go through all the error messages 
and for cryptic messages 
a) if sane translation to "human language" exists, change to that
b) mark real "can't happen" situations as internal errors 

..I'm willing to go through the code and do that. Not for 0.48 but lets
say 0.49 or so. What do you think?

Hmm.. speaking of scary error messages APT is full of them and many of 
them can "leak" to Synaptic through libapt-pkg.. Unfortunately this kind 
of changes are much harder in apt because of upstream vs apt-rpm 
synchronization issues.

> 
> > > > #: gtk/window_main_hpaned.glade.h:99 gtk/window_main_vpaned.glade.h:100
> > > > msgid "_Tag Tree"
> > > 
> > > "keyword" would be a good synonym for "tag". Also debian only.
> > 
> > "Keyword" is at least to me much more understandable / descriptive of the 
> > function than "Tag".
> 
> The problem is that "tag" is the de facto technical term used in Debian.
> We already don't use some native apt/dpkg terms any more (e.g. update,
> purge, hold, pin), but I don't know how far we can go with this.

Yep. I think we need a "Debian" translation of Synaptic, then the rest of 
us can use normal language :)

        - Panu -