Re: accel should be _accel in UI XML files

[Darin Adler <darin eazel com>]

on 10/27/00 8:36 PM, Owen Taylor at otaylor redhat com wrote:

> We discussed this at some length in the context of GTK+, and the
> what everybody told us is that they _didn't_ want the accelerators
> translated. (Meaning hotkeys, not underline shortcuts for menu
> navigation)

OK.

My experience was at Apple where we did change what Windows and Gtk calls
"accelerators" when translating -- only some of them. For example, certain
accelerators were based on keyboard position (like the "Z/X/C/V" set for
undo/copy/paste); those changed when affected by local keyboard layout.

Owen's remarks about a single key corresponding to a letter in a word are
really beside the point. At Apple, we called it "localizing", not
"translating", and it was understood to be more than just translating the
words and images in the programs. The process entailed customizing the
software to the expectations of the people in each locale, and for us it
often included changing what we called "keyboard equivalents".

I fear that programmers are used to English-isms and are thus willing to
accept this more than the average user is. But I'm happy to go with the
wishes of our volunteer translators and the state of the art in Gtk and not
translate these, despite thinking it might be a mistake.

    -- Darin