Re: UI Guidelines: Dialogs (2nd draft)

[Robin Jeffries <robin jeffries eng sun com>]

|
|So far I've just put in all the labels in English, and obviously 
these
|will be different for other locales. Given that the UI guidelines 
will
|probably not be translated into all the languages for which people 
are
|localising interfaces, how should I represent all these labels?
|
|The only thing I can think of is to create a table of objects and
|their locale-specific labels, and have the text constantly referring
|to the table. It would make the guidelines somewhat unpleasant to
|read.
|
|Does anyone have any better suggestions?
|


What other styleguides do is have a table of "GUI words" that include 
button terminology, menu items, and other standard words that occur in 
the GUI, and give the standard translations into relevant languages.  
The MS stylguide has an extensive table covering about 50 languages, I 
think.  The new edition of the Java Guidelines will also have such a 
table (but only for 9 languages).  This can easily include standard 
mnemonics (though those are sometimes situation specific).  It's a big 
help to make sure the same word is used everywhere, and it also 
improves the quality of the translations when people who know 
computers and know both languages can look over the translations and 
spot confusions.

Robin