Re: Construction sentences with embedded widgets

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt postinbox com>]

Wouter Bolsterlee wrote on 02/09/10 22:57:
>
> Op zaterdag 28-08-2010 om 20:40 uur [tijdzone -0500], schreef Stef
> Walter:
>>
>> The following strings were added:
>> "Forget this password if idle for"
>> "Forget this password after"
>> "Forget this password when I log out"
>...
> Imagine a language that requires text both before and after the
> position where the widget is supposed to show up. Example to
> demonstrate the issue I'm referring to (in English): "Forget this
> password after [widget-goes-here] of idle time"
>...
> This sounds like an interesting issue that might apply to multiple
> applications. Thoughts and feedback are welcome!
>...

Another example is in Firefox's Advanced Preferences:

    Use up to [ 50|↕] MB of space for the cache

This is programmed as two strings, with a translation note explaining
how they're used together.
<http://mxr.mozilla.org/firefox/source/browser/locales/en-US/chrome/browser/preferences/advanced.dtd#39>

    <!-- LOCALIZATION NOTE:
      The entities useCacheBefore.label and useCacheAfter.label
      appear on a single line in preferences as follows:

      &useCacheBefore.label  [ textbox... ] &useCacheAfter.label;
    -->
    <!ENTITY useCacheBefore.label      "Use up to">
    <!ENTITY useCacheBefore.accesskey  "U">
    <!ENTITY useCacheAfter.label       "MB of space for the cache">

An alternative method, which would be easier for translators but require
a little more coding, would be to use a single string

    _("Forget this password when idle for %s minutes")

and then to insert the widget in the right place by splitting the
translated string on the "%s".

-- 
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/