Re: (application gnome-schedule) Some changes for translators

["Raphael Higino" <raphaelh uai com br>]

> a few months ago you had a discussion about translating this
> application:
> http://lists.gnome.org/archives/gnome-i18n/2004-June/msg00089.html
>
> Three weeks ago I made the German translation. But I was not very happy
> with this. So I took the holy src/lang.py and made a nearly complete
> rewrite of it (and by the way learnt python).
>
> Now I will hear your opinions before I send it to Gaute, Philip and
> Kristof. The last time I changed lang.py the Czech translation was done
> 13 hours later. To fast to set a message that there is work in progress
> ;)
>
> That is what I have done so far:
>
> 1. Get as much translation out of system, as I could.
> * replaced "nth weekday" with locale's full weekday name
> * replaced "nth month" with locale's full month name
> * replaced "nth day of nth month" with locale's full month plus decimal
> number of day (like "January 21", ordering and notation can changed
> through gettext)
> * replaced "nth minute of nth hour" with a formatted time string (also
> configurable through gettext)
>
> 2. Changed the default way to translate numerics to ordinal numbers
> The default way at this time was the English form. But in this case it
> is not practical because English is very special here.
> Another fact is, that by now nobody has written an own function for
> translating numerics to written/numeric ordinals. So at the moment only
> functions for English, Dutch (both Philip I think) and German (me)
> exists.
> For this reasons I changed the common way to an easier solution.
> Simply used the string _("%d.") as default, what gives a list style
> ordinal like "31." and can be configured with gettext. If this is not
> applicable for your translation, please say it. I will try to find a
> better way or write a special function.
>
> 3. Limited the written ordinals by up to ten (EN) respectively twelve
> (NL/DE)
> This takes effect only for NL/EN/DE because of point three. But if
> anybody writes an own function...
> Nobody can read sentences like "On twenty-forth day of the eleventh
> month at the fifty-ninth minute of the twenty-second hour" ;)
>
> 4. Changed the whole table of sentences for cron expressions...
> ... in this way:
> _("On every %(weekday)s in %(month)s and on %(date)s every year at
> %(time)s")
> So every time it is clear, what a placeholder means. Also you can sort
> things like you want, without using tricky gettext features. But you
> have to take care: "%(whatever)s" should not be translated...

Although I'm so late with replying this message, I didn't have so much time
to try to understand the changes Frank has done. But AFAICU, these changes
will make it easier for translators. Just replacing nth numbers with
strftime() expressions is such a good improving IMO. If the others are as
good as that one, to me it's OK.

Thank you, Frank, for making our wishes about gnome-schedule real.

Raphael Higino