Re: make localisation easier use more stock items (use them everywhere)

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Sat, 19 Mar 2005, Callum McKenzie wrote:

> Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 14:36:53 +1300 (NZDT)
> From: Callum McKenzie <callum physics otago ac nz>
> To: Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>
> Cc: games-list gnome org
> Subject: Re: make localisation easier use more stock items (use them
>     everywhere)
>
> I generally agree.

That's a good place to start.

I forgot to mention my disappointment that GTK doesn't seem to include a
stock item for the top level View menu, which was one of things I noticed
was inconsistently translated.

> Mostly it has been a matter of a lack of time (every time I have to do
> something that involves going through all the games my procrastination
> instincts kick in). There are some comments though:

As programmer that makes a lot of sense, a certain amount of laziness is
required to inspire you to look for better solutions.

> I am uneasy about replacing New Game with New. The basic problem is that
> the resulting stock icon is a sheet of paper.

There should be some way to override this, and I'll have to look into it.
I somehow doubt the desingers would have predicted someone wanting to use
the stock item but not the stock icon, in most cases the stock icon seems
to be what leads on to a Stock Item being created (which if true explains
the abscence of a View item, damn I'd better file a bug and quit
complaining about it.)

> I have no hassle with "New Game" -> "New", but I never changed to the
> stock icon in the hopes of coming up with an icon that was better. The
> stock New icon sort of works when the new item can be described as a
> document. For a new game the icon makes no sense what-so-ever.

> The only reason it works at all is because everyone "knows" that a sheet
> of paper means "New".

Clean Sheet is a pretty powerful metaphor, but that doesn't change your
point.

> I may be a bit sensitive to this, I had a great deal of
> difficulty learning that the floppy disk icon meant "save", I could
> figure out that it dealt with files on the disk,

I learned on a Mac and having been warned never to save directly to a
floppy disk it always seemed like an incongruous choice to me too.  The
higher colour icons in Gnome and rounded edges (and the earlier
perspective icons) would have baffled me if I didn't already know what the
icons were supposed to represent.

I know one elderly user who thought the Gnome Save icon was another icon
representing a computer.  I've long been aware of the importance of a good
text label and the necessity of keeping heiroglyphics simple.

With the floppy disk almost obselete the icon is going to make less and
less sense to new users.

> was always confused about whether it was to save or load a file. I don't
> know why I found it difficult to remember, but I did.

You can safely extrapolate your experience and be assured you aren't the
only one.

> Replacing "Pause Game" with Pause and the like is good. The player should
> already know they are dealing with a game. (I know this same argument
> applies for "New Game" too, my problem is the icon, not the name).
>
> If you do supply patches, make sure they are against CVS since there have
> been several programs converted from using gnome for their menus to using
> gtk.

I might need some help getting everything to build.  I've had some luck
with Garnome but I'm still having a lot of problems when it comes to
building bleeding edge software.

> Stock items will also help with a lack of tooltips in some places. I
> should really go around and fix those sometime soon.

I'll try and fix them too as I go along if I see them.
Hopefully I'll have some time to try and build CVS tomorrow.


To change the subject completely, now that most of the Games are scalable
has there been much/any interest from GPE (the Gnome Palmtop Enviroment)
in getting the same codebase to work on both systems?  (Might be a good
idea to start a seperate thread if you intend to respond to this with more
than a word or two.)

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

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