Action lists

Lapinoo

Joined: 2004-05-08
Posts: 378

Posted: Thu, 2004-12-02 16:01

Hi all,

When G2 display the list of action for an item, each one of them starts with a lowercase letter. If you edit one item, the action list in this mode lists all actions with an uppercase as the first letter.

Maybe we should choose just one way to display action.

As a side-effect, there are twice as many strings to translate for those who translate G2 (at far as actions are concerned).

bharat

Joined: 2002-05-21
Posts: 7994

Posted: Fri, 2004-12-03 05:44

This is on my list of things to fix. I wanted the dropdown actions to be more inobtrusive so I thought lowercase would be better. But baschny pointed out that in some languages, upper/lowercase has a more significant difference than it does in English so I guess we can't use that. We should probably switch them all to one or the other. Baschny, did you have more thoughts on this?

Lapinoo

Joined: 2004-05-08
Posts: 378

Posted: Fri, 2004-12-03 10:09

I think baschny is referring to German. But the problem could be complicated in other languages as well.
By the way, speaking of lower/uppercase letters, some buttons use to capitalize strings before displaying them. I know it is common use in English to capitalize words, it is not in French.

Also, speaking of French, some actions are impossible to translate correctly. Take for example:
Edit %s
That would translate into:

Edit Album
Edit Item

There is no article in the transalation, so that's OK

In French, it would be
Editer %s
That would translate into:

Editer album
Edit élément

which is not quite correct since the article is missing, the correct action should be:

Editer l'album
Edit l'élément

In this case, it is the same article form both, but that might not be the case for each item that can be used.
Since the article cannot be put in the generic string, it could maybe be put in the item name. I haven't checked yet, but we might run into another problem : Capitalize the first letter if it is at the beginning of a sentence, and sometines, we would require another article like a/the/this in English...
I'll finish to transate the fr_FR localization, then I will try to find a correct solution... But even if I find a solution, there might be troubles for other languages.

Finally, some modules (at least one, but I don't remember which, I will have to check) cuts sentences into several pieces and decide to cut pieces together according to the context. I managed to translate this into french, but I am not sure that that would work with all languages...[/]

[/]

Lapinoo

Joined: 2004-05-08
Posts: 378

Posted: Tue, 2005-04-26 08:58

Since we get closer from G2 Gold, I'd like to update the French translation of G2.

I would like we reach a decision on the following points:
- Have either uppercase or lowercase actions in english. We can use uppercase in other languages if required.
- Chose just one word from the list photo, image or picture when speaking of a picture/photo in the UI. Right now, those 3 words are mixed in the UI.
- I also would like we discuss how to use "%s" strings so that it is not a pain for us to translate the UI in other languages where articles are compulsory (not like in english).

I'm sure, those who translated G2 in other languages have similar wishes they would like to share :wink:

bharat

Joined: 2002-05-21
Posts: 7994

Posted: Sat, 2005-04-30 21:42

We're going to do one more round of ui changes that will probably impact the action lists, so we should hold off a little bit longer before making the final localization decisions on this.

I agree that we should normalize our terminology. I vote that we call everything a "photo" even though that isn't strictly accurate.

Can you explain in a little more detail the problems with the %s strings?

Lapinoo

Joined: 2004-05-08
Posts: 378

Posted: Mon, 2005-05-02 13:49

bharat,

Here are a few details :

First, some modules (I haven't check this point for a couple of months) build sentences by using a generic string like "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, %s" and then completes the sentence with a complex string thanks to the %s. I manage to translate this one nicely into french, but I would be curious to check if Jens has no problem translate that into german. Some languages have grammatical rules that could make it a nightmare to translate such pieces of strings. I don't know about ideogram based languages, but that might be a problem as well. I would recommend that we edict a rule forbidding to construct complex sentences with "%s", where the "%s" is replaced by something different than a word or article+word.

Second, a easier one : I'm pretty sure there is some code that make text uppercase, lowercase or capitalized (buttons for instance). Though it surely look nice in english (ie. we are used to it), I hate to see it in french. It may even change the meaning in other languages. So my recommandation would be : to_upper, to_lower, and so on should be banned from the GUI code in G2 ! If required, have 2 versions of the same string, depending on the need to play with uppercases, lowercases.

Last, the trickiest one : the problem with articles...
In the action list, you will find "edit album". In fact it is "edit %s" + "album". If I translate it into french, it becomes :
"edit %s" --> "éditer %s"
"album" --> "album"
the translated sentence is then "éditer album". In fact, the proper action should be "éditer l'album", the article is needed (although people would understand without it). Some would suggest to add the article within the %s string : "éditer l'%s"... That doesn't work: replace "album" with "photo", and you would have "éditer l'photo", which is worse than "éditer photo", in fact it sould be "éditer la photo". As you guessed, "the" becomes "le", "la" or even "l'" in french... The other solution could be "album" becomes "l'album", but that will have an impact somewhere else in the UI.
It isn't the worst situation : maybe "edit %s" could become "%s editum" in another language (I invent here). then "album" should be "El albomino" with a capital E because it is the first word... In this case, "album" could become "El albomino" or "el albmino" depending on the postion of the %s...
Sometimes I think that every single string in G2 should be translated independly...

valiant

Joined: 2003-01-04
Posts: 32509

Posted: Mon, 2005-05-02 14:04

+1 for changing strings such as "edit %s" to "edit album", "edit photo", ...

but i'm sure there are still a lot of use cases for the %s.

update:

i just checked if this was really the case. it isn't.

"edit album" is a translation string, not "edit %s", same for "add sub-album". i.e. these strings can already be translated correctly.

Lapinoo

Joined: 2004-05-08
Posts: 378

Posted: Tue, 2005-05-03 16:20

valiant,

I checked to core module too. There are indeed fewer strings with the %s, however, I still found :
- msgid "edit %s"
- msgid "Edit %s"
- msgid "Set the date and time to be displayed for this %s." (really nasty since the article is within the string)

One must note that the core module is the cleanest one ;-) Other modules are more difficult to translate even if they have less strings.

Lapinoo

Joined: 2004-05-08
Posts: 378

Posted: Tue, 2005-05-03 16:47

bharat,

I understand why we should promote "photo" instead of all the other terms... Gallery is "your photos on your website", however I still prefer "picture" a littre more : it is a more generic term that will apply for any graphical element.

However, as long as we chose one term, I'll be happy ;-)

pachai

Joined: 2005-05-08
Posts: 9

Posted: Thu, 2005-05-12 15:26

I hate to "sound" cotrary after all the comments
that Gallery is "your PHOTOS on the web"....
but, I was wondering, is it technically reasonable
to customize the word photo into some other,
like word "item"?

In our case, we have photos (actually, scanned art)
that we want to display....but they are displaying notecards
that have the photos on them...

I did a grep and, well, there are many megabytes of
lines containing the word photo...

Thanks alot
Seth
PS if there is another product as generally easy to set up
as Gallery, I would look at it, but I feel like I only have
a few more customizations to do to get it going for our site.
http://www.sibcenter.org/gallery

Lapinoo Joined: 2004-05-08 Posts: 378	Posted: Thu, 2004-12-02 16:01
	Hi all, When G2 display the list of action for an item, each one of them starts with a lowercase letter. If you edit one item, the action list in this mode lists all actions with an uppercase as the first letter. Maybe we should choose just one way to display action. As a side-effect, there are twice as many strings to translate for those who translate G2 (at far as actions are concerned).
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bharat Joined: 2002-05-21 Posts: 7994	Posted: Fri, 2004-12-03 05:44
	This is on my list of things to fix. I wanted the dropdown actions to be more inobtrusive so I thought lowercase would be better. But baschny pointed out that in some languages, upper/lowercase has a more significant difference than it does in English so I guess we can't use that. We should probably switch them all to one or the other. Baschny, did you have more thoughts on this?

Lapinoo Joined: 2004-05-08 Posts: 378	Posted: Fri, 2004-12-03 10:09
	I think baschny is referring to German. But the problem could be complicated in other languages as well. By the way, speaking of lower/uppercase letters, some buttons use to capitalize strings before displaying them. I know it is common use in English to capitalize words, it is not in French. Also, speaking of French, some actions are impossible to translate correctly. Take for example: `Edit %s` That would translate into: Edit Album Edit Item There is no article in the transalation, so that's OK In French, it would be `Editer %s` That would translate into: Editer album Edit élément which is not quite correct since the article is missing, the correct action should be: Editer l'album Edit l'élément In this case, it is the same article form both, but that might not be the case for each item that can be used. Since the article cannot be put in the generic string, it could maybe be put in the item name. I haven't checked yet, but we might run into another problem : Capitalize the first letter if it is at the beginning of a sentence, and sometines, we would require another article like a/the/this in English... I'll finish to transate the fr_FR localization, then I will try to find a correct solution... But even if I find a solution, there might be troubles for other languages. Finally, some modules (at least one, but I don't remember which, I will have to check) cuts sentences into several pieces and decide to cut pieces together according to the context. I managed to translate this into french, but I am not sure that that would work with all languages...[/] [/] [/]

Lapinoo Joined: 2004-05-08 Posts: 378	Posted: Tue, 2005-04-26 08:58
	Since we get closer from G2 Gold, I'd like to update the French translation of G2. I would like we reach a decision on the following points: - Have either uppercase or lowercase actions in english. We can use uppercase in other languages if required. - Chose just one word from the list photo, image or picture when speaking of a picture/photo in the UI. Right now, those 3 words are mixed in the UI. - I also would like we discuss how to use "%s" strings so that it is not a pain for us to translate the UI in other languages where articles are compulsory (not like in english). I'm sure, those who translated G2 in other languages have similar wishes they would like to share :wink:

bharat Joined: 2002-05-21 Posts: 7994	Posted: Sat, 2005-04-30 21:42
	We're going to do one more round of ui changes that will probably impact the action lists, so we should hold off a little bit longer before making the final localization decisions on this. I agree that we should normalize our terminology. I vote that we call everything a "photo" even though that isn't strictly accurate. Can you explain in a little more detail the problems with the %s strings?

Lapinoo Joined: 2004-05-08 Posts: 378	Posted: Mon, 2005-05-02 13:49
	bharat, Here are a few details : First, some modules (I haven't check this point for a couple of months) build sentences by using a generic string like "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, %s" and then completes the sentence with a complex string thanks to the %s. I manage to translate this one nicely into french, but I would be curious to check if Jens has no problem translate that into german. Some languages have grammatical rules that could make it a nightmare to translate such pieces of strings. I don't know about ideogram based languages, but that might be a problem as well. I would recommend that we edict a rule forbidding to construct complex sentences with "%s", where the "%s" is replaced by something different than a word or article+word. Second, a easier one : I'm pretty sure there is some code that make text uppercase, lowercase or capitalized (buttons for instance). Though it surely look nice in english (ie. we are used to it), I hate to see it in french. It may even change the meaning in other languages. So my recommandation would be : to_upper, to_lower, and so on should be banned from the GUI code in G2 ! If required, have 2 versions of the same string, depending on the need to play with uppercases, lowercases. Last, the trickiest one : the problem with articles... In the action list, you will find "edit album". In fact it is "edit %s" + "album". If I translate it into french, it becomes : "edit %s" --> "éditer %s" "album" --> "album" the translated sentence is then "éditer album". In fact, the proper action should be "éditer l'album", the article is needed (although people would understand without it). Some would suggest to add the article within the %s string : "éditer l'%s"... That doesn't work: replace "album" with "photo", and you would have "éditer l'photo", which is worse than "éditer photo", in fact it sould be "éditer la photo". As you guessed, "the" becomes "le", "la" or even "l'" in french... The other solution could be "album" becomes "l'album", but that will have an impact somewhere else in the UI. It isn't the worst situation : maybe "edit %s" could become "%s editum" in another language (I invent here). then "album" should be "El albomino" with a capital E because it is the first word... In this case, "album" could become "El albomino" or "el albmino" depending on the postion of the %s... Sometimes I think that every single string in G2 should be translated independly...

valiant Joined: 2003-01-04 Posts: 32509	Posted: Mon, 2005-05-02 14:04
	+1 for changing strings such as "edit %s" to "edit album", "edit photo", ... but i'm sure there are still a lot of use cases for the %s. update: i just checked if this was really the case. it isn't. "edit album" is a translation string, not "edit %s", same for "add sub-album". i.e. these strings can already be translated correctly.

Lapinoo Joined: 2004-05-08 Posts: 378	Posted: Tue, 2005-05-03 16:20
	valiant, I checked to core module too. There are indeed fewer strings with the %s, however, I still found : - msgid "edit %s" - msgid "Edit %s" - msgid "Set the date and time to be displayed for this %s." (really nasty since the article is within the string) One must note that the core module is the cleanest one ;-) Other modules are more difficult to translate even if they have less strings.

Lapinoo Joined: 2004-05-08 Posts: 378	Posted: Tue, 2005-05-03 16:47
	bharat, I understand why we should promote "photo" instead of all the other terms... Gallery is "your photos on your website", however I still prefer "picture" a littre more : it is a more generic term that will apply for any graphical element. However, as long as we chose one term, I'll be happy ;-)

pachai Joined: 2005-05-08 Posts: 9	Posted: Thu, 2005-05-12 15:26
	I hate to "sound" cotrary after all the comments that Gallery is "your PHOTOS on the web".... but, I was wondering, is it technically reasonable to customize the word photo into some other, like word "item"? In our case, we have photos (actually, scanned art) that we want to display....but they are displaying notecards that have the photos on them... I did a grep and, well, there are many megabytes of lines containing the word photo... Thanks alot Seth PS if there is another product as generally easy to set up as Gallery, I would look at it, but I feel like I only have a few more customizations to do to get it going for our site. http://www.sibcenter.org/gallery

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