Translations

[Dirk Hohndel]

On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 11:47:09AM +0100, Martin Měřinský wrote:
> Hello,
> I have several translation questions/proposals.
> 
> Why are there so many same strings?
> Eg. I found six <source>Weight</source>
> Or identical:
> <source>The following error occurred:</source>
> <source>The following error occurred:</source>
> <source>Choose file for divecomputer download logfile</source>
> <source>Choose file for divecomputer download logfile</source>

That is triggered by the localization tools that we are using. I tried to
figure out how to reduce this, but it made the program code harder to use
(basically, each class creates its own strings and if you use the same
string between different classes it will show up multiple times in the
translation strings). Transifex makes this slightly easier because you
should be able to just copy the existing 100% match string. But it's still
an annoyance (and it still takes at least some time).

I yesterday saw that Transifex may now have an option to do this
automatically - I'll need to look into that.

> Would it be possible, to add ':' outside translated string? Or omit it?
> There are many strings like:
> Depth
> Depth:

That's a good idea - it still will create identical strings as mentioned
before in many cases, but at least this allows copying the strings with
one click.

> Please, omit LF charachters in strings whenever possible.
> 
> There are many _almost_ identical strings, eg.:
> The archive could not be opened:⏎
> The archive could not be opened:⏎%1
> User survey
> Subsurface user survey
> 
> If you need new string, please search existing strings first (use as
> least strings as possible). Eg. difference between
> "Upload finished" and "Upload successful" is minimal.

(actually, that's very different - upload could be finished but have
failed)
> 
> Vendor name :
> Remove space before colon.
> 
> Show mean depth in Profile
> Why capital letter P?

Those last two seem like bugs to me

> Inconsistencies in source strings:
> ----------------------------------
> Send the dive data to divelogs.de website. (Ends with dot.)
> Send the dive data to dive-share.appspot.com website (No dot at the
> end.)

Definitely a bug. 

> Temp
> Temp.
> Max. depth
> max depth
> Please, either use with dot or don't.

Consistency has always been one of our challenges. Many contributors, most
not native speakers of English, and open source development model... there
is a ton we could do to make things better. Who will do the work?

> Dive Details
> Dive details
> Different letter case.
> 
> Dive Master
> Divemaster
> 
> maxdepth
> max depth
> 
> divecomputer
> dive computer
> 
> cuft
> cu ft
> 
> divetime
> dive time
> 
> divemode
> dive mode
> 
> divelog
> dive log
> 
> Air Temp.
> Air temp.
> Air temp.:
> Air Temp:
> 
> Cyl.
> Cyl
> Cylinder
> 
> Start Pressure
> Start pressure
> Start press.
> 
> SAC: %.*f%s/min
> SAC:%.*f %s
> 
> ean
> EAN
> 
> unkn
> unknown
> 
> facebook
> Facebook
> 
> setpoint
> set-point
> 
> Heart rate
> heart rate
> heartbeat
> 
> Dive No.
> Dive #
> 
> Always show ppO2
> Shoudn't be pO₂?
> 
> SankTime
> Shoudn't be Sank Time?
> 
> salt water
> fresh (no water)

Agreed on all of the above. Not good.

> What is your workflow, as translators? How do you test your changes
> after translating text in Transifex? Is there any way to export .ts
> file?

There are two ways to do this. You can build Subsurface from source and
pull the latest translations manually. Or you can wait for me to create a
new daily build.

> How do you deal with keyboard shortcuts (&)? How do you test that they
> are unique? Is there way to use shortcut with letter other than any in
> the translated text?

My guess is this gets almost never tested.

> I'm newbie in translating, so sorry if these questions are stupid :-)
> I'm just trying to find out, if there is way to make translating easier
> (and also UI prettier in English).

These questions are excellent and they point out areas where we could do
better. In so many ways this would be a reasonably easy prject that
someone could tackle even without a ton of programming experience or UI
experience. But as always in open source - it takes a volunteer to do
that.

Thanks for your help 

/D