Re: schema files

[Ole Laursen <olau hardworking dk>]

Christian Rose <menthos@gnome.org> writes:

> lör 2003-07-12 klockan 16.54 skrev Ole Laursen:
> > > i) Make sure you have both <short> and useful <long> descriptions for
> > > all keys, for the benefit of the users.
> > 
> > I think this latter advice should be left out. If you don't have
> > anything on your mind for the long description (as is often the case),
> > making one up is just wasting bits and creating extra (often quite
> > boring) work for us.

[...]

> What I tried with point i) above is to stress the need for actually
> useful <long> descriptions; descriptions that explain in more detail
> than the <short> description what they key actually does control and
> what alternate settings for this key there are etc. Such descriptions
> add much valuable information for the users that need to modify the
> values of such keys.

I agree with that - but many things are more or less self-evident. For
instance, the key "applet_height". Having "Applet height" is OK for a
short text, but adding "Height of the applet in pixels." for the long
text is non-sensical. One might as well reformulate the short text to
"Applet height in pixels".

> More work for us, but fulfilling the user's needs are more important.

Sure. I think the advice needs to be elaborated. What about:

  i) Make sure you have <short> and _useful_ <long> descriptions for
     all keys. If a <long> description does not contain any new
     information (e.g. if it is just a reformulation of the <short>
     description), it is usually better to leave it out; it will just
     create more work for the translators.


PS: There's really no need to send the message to me privately too.
Please just post to the list.

-- 
Ole Laursen
http://www.cs.auc.dk/~olau/