Languages and Directories

["Thilo Pfennig" <thilopfennig foresightlinux org>]

I am not sure which this is the right list so I wrote to usability and i18n.

I think we have an issue with application defaults directories. Some
applications always use english directory names. The problem with that
is that the user might have created a mudic directory with a name in
his native language and that then each new installed application that
has a fixed default path writes to the english directory.

So I think instead of including default paths I like to suggest that
GNOME introduces variables that define a default folder that can be
translated.

So maybe the default Music folder becomes "$HOME/Music", but that this
is already changed on first log in if the users has another default
language and so this variable in gconf is replaced by a localized
alternative.

Further I suggest that the user can reconfig the paths (maybe even
change this to a network path) and that applications are encouraged to
respect those paths instead of using a default (english) folder.

A common solution is to make a link from "Music" to another localized
folder, but this solution rather defines english as the main language.
I also think that a changeable variable can be much more flexible and
also allows sharing of location information between applications (if
they want it). So this should be similar to the network proxy config
or gnome-volume-properties. It just makes no sense to have every
single app control a shared destination.

A translated directory would make GNOME look much more user friendly and usable.

Any thoughts on this?

Thilo
--
Thilo Pfennig
http://issues.foresightlinux.org/confluence/x/R