Re: Grammar problems in gnomecal

[James Aylett <dj-gnome insigma com>]

On Tue, Aug 10, 1999 at 01:50:47AM -0400, Sergey I. Panov wrote:

> We all know that coders should try to avoid assembling phrases out
> small pieces, because such practice creates unresolvable problems for
> translators. English grammar is not as complex as other grammars.
> 
> One of the most difficult cases is an "eventedit" dialog in gnomecal.
> We have there the following constract(just one of them):
> 
> 
>                 - [1,..,31] - [th day of the month]
>                |
>                |
> [Recur on the]-
>                |
>                 - [1st,..,5th] - [Monday,...,Sunday]
> 
>  I do not know how that dialog should be changed to get around 
> those problems, but I know it should not be left as it is right now.

This is one of the things which makes localisation very difficult. As a
thought, if we were using libglade there (we don't appear to be, at any
rate), the XML interface definition could be localised. I have a feeling
that someone is going to start shouting that that's evil (and they may have
a point :-), but it does mean that this sort of thing doesn't have to be
bludgeoned into some horrible pseudo-language just so it will translate
better.

While we're talking about localisation issues, is there a way I can get
GNOME things in general to use British date formats (dd/mm/yy[yy]) instead
of US?

James

-- 
/--------------------------------------------------------------------------\
  James Aylett                                           www.zap.uk.eu.org
  james@tartarus.org                                    www.footlights.org