Re: GStreamer: plugins or elements

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Fri, 2006-01-20 at 15:26 +0100, Thomas Vander Stichele wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> There's been some back-and-forth-committing of string changes related to
> this bug: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=321536
> 
> On the one hand, it is argued that "element" is more "slangy" than
> "plug-in", and thus the word element should not be used.
> 
> On the other hand, GStreamer tries to create elements, not plugins, to
> do its job.  plugins are a construct that can provide elements, among
> other things.
> 
> So right now, gnome-media will say that "you're missing the
> gconfaudiosrc plugin", while no such plugin exists.
> 
> Also, I don't know if plug-in is that less slangy than element.  I'm
> sure my mom doesn't know what a plug-in is either.
> 
> These are visible strings - could the gnome-i18n team advise on what to
> do with this ?

I think I'd prefer to see that sort of thing avoided
altogether by using the long name of the element:

"The GConf audio source could not be found."

Of course, if the desired element isn't installed,
then there's no way to extract the long name.  But
if you're checking for a specific known element,
you can hardcode its long name in your application.

More generally, I don't think element or plug-in
are terms that a lot of non-technical users are
going to recognize, although some users will have
some sense of what a plug-in is.  Solely from the
standpoint of users understanding what's giong on,
I think the choice of terms is irrelevant.  It's
like talking about kernel modules: no amount of
sugar language is going to make it immediately
understandable.

The best solution is probably to use the correct
term, which is element.  And then make sure any
dialogs that really need to talk about elements
have just enough language to convey the gist of
the problem to most people.  Compare:

"Could not find gconfaudiosrc element."

"The gconfaudiosrc audio input element could
not be found on your system.  Without this..."

Simply by saying "audio input element", you give
some sense of what's going on.  It's not going to
turn Aunt Tilly into a GStreamer hacker overnight,
but it doesn't sound as horribly cryptic as the
first example.

Then we add troubleshooting sections to the help
files (the single most useful thing to have in
help files, and the single least common thing we
ever have in Gnome help files), and we make that
dialog link to that.

--
Shaun