[Qgis-community-team] [Qgis-developer] translation: breaking ts file up in parts for transifex ?

[Kari Salovaara]

On 02/16/2014 01:49 PM, Alexander Bruy wrote:
> 2014-02-16 13:22 GMT+02:00 Kari Salovaara <kari.salovaara at pp1.inet.fi>:
>> String cannot be too long; if You cannot translate the string correctly it's
>> developers duty to modify/update the dialog structure to make all
>> translations possible (that's called democracy). ;)
> I can translate string correctly. But you miss some points:
>   - in some languages average word length is bigger that in others, as result
>     translated string can be much longer than original
>   - sometimes original string should be translated in a flexible way, using
>     synonyms or even totally rephrased.
>
> There are some other reasons why translated string has bigger length
> that original
> one. And this is not developers duty, this is translator duty to make
> UI consistent
> and easy to read.
>

I've almost single handed translated from so called English language the 
whole QGIS application (and some other applications too), so I think 
I've some experience. The language structure is very different in 
various languages (I've also some knowledge of other languages than 
Finnish ;) ). If You cannot fit translation in too small area then 
translator cannot obey Your order and duties You mentioned. QGIS is 
meant to be a quality software and that means those texts which 
developer has originally written should be used (mostly) but at least 
they should be understandable. To change dialog e.g. using the tools Qt 
provides, it'll take max 3 mins. and I consider that a very limited cost 
compared that if user cannot understand and you have to help him/her 
each time 15 mins. or that we get bad reputation and QGIS will not get 
new users.

I'm not looking any fight here, I'm only looking quality result. These 
issues have been somewhat a problem since gui came into use, for me late 
70's.

Cheers,
Kari

-- 
Kari Salovaara
Hanko, Finland

"Volunteers do not necessarily have the time; they just have the heart." ~Elizabeth Andrew