About strings (i18n)

Moin folks

In Avogadro there are some strings which don’t belong into the the
translation-file. For example

BondCentric

or

ClickMeasure

are no real words and cannot be translated. We either have to remove the tr()
around it or rephrase them.

The situation is like this:

  1. The word is no real english word
  2. This “make one word out of two words” doesn’t work in german (and many
    other languages"
  3. Thus, I cannot translate it
  4. My mum doesn’t know what “ClickMeasure” means
  5. Thus, the string is not understandable by my mum
  6. We need need to change it

You always have to imagine translation like this: What if the string would be
in Chinese? Would YOU as a non-chinese-speaking person want the word to be
translated? For many users of Avogadro, English is as foreign as Chinese is
to you.

Carsten

Am Samstag, 13. Oktober 2007 12:30:44 schrieb Carsten Niehaus:

I had a look at the sourcecode.

In Avogadro there are some strings which don’t belong into the the
translation-file. For example

BondCentric

or

ClickMeasure

are no real words and cannot be translated. We either have to remove the
tr() around it or rephrase them.

  //! Tool Name
  virtual QString name() const { return(tr("AutoRotate")); }

AFAIK that is never uservisible, right? If so, I’d like to remove the tr() of
all tools in that method.

Ok?

Carsten

On Oct 13, 2007, at 6:30 AM, Carsten Niehaus wrote:

BondCentric

ClickMeasure

  1. The word is no real english word
  2. This “make one word out of two words” doesn’t work in german
    (and many
    other languages"
  1. It’s more like a phrase.

It’s the “Bond Centric Manipulation” tool, or the “Click to Measure”
tool.

If you have better suggestions in English (or German), I think we’re
definitely open to that. We haven’t spent a huge amount of time on
naming/interface. (For example, the “Tools” menu is actually a list
of Extensions.)

  1. Wait, you’re saying German doesn’t make compound words from two
    separate words? What about “bildungsroman” or
    “modelleisenbahn…” (Wow, some weird words popped into my head!)

Look, I don’t know Chinese, but I’ve been working with a Japanese
graduate student for a while. They either don’t translate the English
word, or they form compound words from multiple ideas.

AFAIK that is never uservisible, right? If so, I’d like to remove
the tr() of
all tools in that method.

I’m certainly OK with removing non-visible strings from the
translation list.

Cheers,
-Geoff

On Saturday 13 October 2007 16:20:09 Geoffrey Hutchison wrote:

  1. Wait, you’re saying German doesn’t make compound words from two
    separate words? What about “bildungsroman” or
    “modelleisenbahn…” (Wow, some weird words popped into my head!)

Look, I don’t know Chinese, but I’ve been working with a Japanese
graduate student for a while. They either don’t translate the English
word, or they form compound words from multiple ideas.

I agree that compound words exist in German, but I can say that they don’t
exist in French!

So “BondCentric” is just plain untranslatable in French. (Which, by the way,
is also one of the main reasons why even hardcore francophony-defending
programmers don’t name their variables with french names).

So I think I translated “BondCentric” as “Outil des liaisons” which, when
translated back to English, gives litteraly “Bonds’s Tool”.

I’m not complaining or anything – just writing this so you know how French
readers will read avogadro!

Cheers,
Benoît