Re: Should I translate "TRUE" and "FALSE"?

["Christian Rose" <menthos gnome org>]

On 2/14/07, Djihed Afifi <djihedlists googlemail com> wrote:
> On 14/02/07, Leonardo Fontenelle <leo fontenelle gmail com> wrote:
> > The "Localising GNOME Applications" guide [1] says I shouldn't, but
> > I'm not sure its reasons are still valid:
> >
> > --->8---
> > TRUE and FALSE
> >
> >     "TRUE" and "FALSE" show up in gtk+ and in Gconf and in a lot of
> > files generated by Glade. (These will have a name ending in .glade.)
> > Do not translate them. Programs expect to see them and will be
> > confused if they don't.
> > --->8---
>
> I think they shouldn't be flagged as translatable in the first place
> if they shouldn't be changed. A single message "TRUE" or "FALSE"
> should be considered a bug.

Agreed. If the message is marked for translation and it, for whatever
reason, should not be translated, then the marking for translation is
a bug and should be reported as such.


> > Currently I see lots of "TRUE" and "FALSE" in messages from schema
> > files, describing how to use the keys. Eg: "If this is set to TRUE, it
> > will rain tomorrow"; or "Choose your meals. Works only if
> > have_microwave is TRUE." Should this occurrences be translated?
> >
> > Leonardo Fontenelle (leonardof)
> >
> > 1. http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gtp/l10n-guide/
>
> We translate it and enclose the original english in brackets.

Personally, I'd translate it altogether:

msgid "If this is set to TRUE, it will rain tomorrow."
msgstr "Om detta är SANT kommer det att regna imorgon."

The rationale being that this is a boolean setting, and *not* a
literal value. Because this is not a literal value, any GUI editor
would show the translated values, or a widget showing a boolean state,
and not literal string values. And since these gconf key descriptions
end up being showed in GUI editors, the (translated) description
should match what's being shown.

(You could, by the same logic, argue that the boolean values in
descriptions should not be translated, since they would also appear in
console text files, where the literals would be used for
interpretation. But then I would argue that we should care more about
the GUI experience rather than the console experience).

Just my opinion. :-)


Christian