Re: Orca A few more questions

[Willie Walker <William Walker Sun COM>]

> That is probably a good idea for the users, but from the point of view 
> of the translators it's actually better if you explain it in the comment 
> in the header of the .po file. You see, the translation teams aren't 
> always so fortunate as to have a user of all the different pieces of 
> software that we translate. And if you are not a user it simply takes to 
> much time to try and get a overview of the documentation and track down 
> the info that way.

Will do.  Can you tell me more about how to do this?  We've been putting 
comments in with the source code, but I've never quite figured out how 
to get the comments in a .po file.  Should we be creating an en_US.po 
file and documenting things there?

> Anyway I'm almost done with the translation now and a few more questions 
> have popped up. 

Thanks!

> 1. (speech) Ambiguity
> In Danish the word for what people does when they talk (tale) and the 
> word for having something read to you (læse op) are different. So my 
> question is, besides from the strings that concerns adjusting the pitch 
> and tone does the term speech always concern the latter of the two?

Most of this has to do with reference to the speech synthesizer.  But, I 
think we might need to have a more careful dialog about the various 
strings.  If you can cut/paste the ones in question, I can tell you more 
about them.

> 2. (greyed) Ambiguity
> #: ../src/orca/braillegenerator.py:197 ../src/orca/speechgenerator.py:198
> What is greyed. Is it buttons or text or ...? That would also be 
> different in Danish depending on what it is that is "greyed"

It can be any object, and it really is the shorthand way of saying "this 
thing is insensitive".

> 3. (braille)
> According to my dictionary "braille" is that kind of text that blind 
> people can read by touching it (blindeskrift). But is that always the 
> use of the term or is there also a program or device called that?

Braille is indeed what you think it is.  We don't have a program called 
"braille," but there is such a device we refer to as a "refreshable 
braille display".  People who use braille with Orca use such a device.

> 4. (heading)
> Heading can also by translated into different words in danish depending 
> on whether it is, a head line or the header of tekstfile. It is relevant 
> in the following strings:
> #: ../src/orca/Gecko.py:3031 ../src/orca/Gecko.py:3042
> No more headings

These are things like <h1> in HTML.

> #: ../src/orca/rolenames.py:543.
> Header

This one has been an AT-SPI mystery to me.  It's most likely header at 
the top of a page in a document.

> The same goes for footer
> #: ../src/orca/rolenames.py:548
> footer

Again, a mystery.  But, it's most likely the footer at the bottom of a 
page in a document.

> 5. (chunk)
> #: ../src/orca/Gecko.py:3053 ../src/orca/Gecko.py:3064
> I assume that we're talking about a text chunk

Ahhh...this one is tough.  It's ambiguous on purpose, but it's meaning 
is intended to be a blob of information that's you can easily skip over. 
 A paragraph is a chunk.  A list (and possibly a list item) is a chunk. 
 A header is a chunk.  The idea here is to allow users to repeatedly 
press a single well-known keystroke to skim over meaningful chunks of a 
document until they get where they want to do.  No good word for it.  :-(

> 6. (Enter y or n)
> I assume that the y or n characters are hardcoded since I can't seem to 
> find a string for them. Is that correct? Because in the case I'm going 
> to make a special construction here, something like "Tast y(ja) eller 
> n(nej)", because the danish words for yes and no doesn't start with the 
> same letters.

Oohhh...we blew this one.  Do you have a suggestion for how we should 
handle this in our text-based setup?  Is there a l10n/i18n thing to do 
for requesting/handling yes/no answers from the command line?

> 7. (Mod.Mask 1)
> #: ../src/orca/orca_gui_prefs.py:123
> _If_ it is short for modification mask, then does the translation need 
> to be kept short also

Hmmm...this might be a mistake to flag the string for translation.  I'll 
need to ask Jorge about that.

> 8. (desktop)
> #: ../src/orca/orca_console_prefs.py:307
> 1. Desktop
> In this it is fairly obvious that it is a desktop (computer) you are 
> referring to since the next string is Laptop, but
> #: ../src/orca/orca_gui_prefs.py:1922 ../src/orca/orca-setup.glade.h:66
> _Desktop
> here I can't tell whether you are referring to the computer or the 
> workspace on the screen

We're actually referring to the class of computer keyboard.  The idea is 
that a desktop keyboard has a keypad on the right and laptop keyboard 
doesn't.

> 9. Abbreviations in rolenames.py
> There are a lot a three string sets like this one:
> ckm
> CheckMenu
> check menu
> What are the abbreviations going to used for? Are there any certain 
> rules I should try to create them by, like only using consonants? Is it 
> necessary to keep them the same length as the English ones?

The abbreviations are sent to braille, and the goal is to keep them 
short to preserve valuable space on the braille display.  I wish I had 
construction rules for you, but I think those things may need to be left 
up to the linguistic expertise of someone who speaks the language.  :-(

> 10. (writer)
> #: ../src/orca/scripts/StarOffice.py:1469
> Is it just the persom currently writing or a writer as in, "the writer 
> of the document" or "author of the book"

This is an unfortunate one, and we only do these things as a last 
resort.  If it's what I think it is, it's the last name of the title for 
the window being shown by OpenOffice.  We all realize how fragile and 
brittle this can be, and we only do it when we really really have to.

> I hope you have the time, and if so I promise I won't disturb you again 
> untill after the 2.18 release ;)

You're questions are welcome!  You're doing us a great favor.

Will