[RFC] Marking D-I strings for translation priority

From: Christian Perrier <bubulle(at)debian.org>
Date: Sat Nov 10 2007 - 01:46:53 EST

(voluntarily breaking threading)

From an earlier discussion in -boot, mostly with Frans Pop, the following idea came up:

> Quoting Frans Pop (elendil@planet.nl):

> > > > And the splitting out into sublevels could be done by again first
> > > > merging to a single master file and then using msggrep -C.
> >
> > > From what I get of tour proposal, we would tag the strings somewhere
> > > (in the templates file?), then dispatch them into sublevel PO files.
> >
> > Yes, add a comment to indicate the level and then msggrep -C on that
> > comment, first for the lowest level and then for the higher levels. Any
> > strings that are left over are sublevel 1.

That seems feasible as long as each string in PO files is "marked" with a comment.

The point is to categorize strings in five categories:

• sublevel 1: default
• sublevel 2: general strings not used during default installs
• sublevel 3: expert strings (some low prio, some for e.g. RAID)
• sublevel 4: specific to less-popular arches (powerpc, mips, sparc?) or used in experimental features
• sublevel 5: same for high-end (hppa, ia64, s390) and hobby (m68k) arches

Strings could be "marked" in such way:

---

Template: debian-installer/localechooser/title Type: text

# This menu entry may be translated.  
# However, translators are required to keep "Choose language"
# as an alternative separated by the "/" character
# Example (french): Choisir la langue/Choose language
# sublevel1

_Description: Choose language

.../...

Template: debian-installer/locale
Type: select
Choices: ${LOCALELIST}
# sublevel2
_Description: Choose a locale:
 Based on your language and country choices, the following locale  parameters are supported.

---

That would give in PO files:

---

#. Type: text
#. Description
#. This menu entry may be translated.
#. However, translators are required to keep "Choose language"
#. as an alternative separated by the "/" character
#. Example (french): Choisir la langue/Choose language
#. sublevel1
#: ../localechooser.templates-in:1001

msgid "Choose language"
msgstr "Choisir la langue/Choose language"

.../...

#. Type: select
#. Description
#. sublevel2
#: ../localechooser.templates-in:13001

msgid "Choose a locale:"
msgstr "Paramètres régionaux :"

---

The "marker" is yet to be defined. Something as simple as possible with the guarantee to not appear in "regular" comments in enough.

Please note that this *will* increase the size of templates file AND PO files but NOT the size of udeb packages as the templates files in them is generated without comments.

So, the size of D-I *source* packages will be increased but not the size of binary packages.

Once all strings are marked, hacking would be needed (mostly with msggrep) to split out the master PO file into 5 sublevel files containing the strings for each sublevel. An late rhacking will be needed to l10n-sync so that strings in packages can be updated from these sublevel files.

That would allow new translators to focus their work on the most "important" strings first, then gradually work on more "obscure" strings. As a consequence, we (D-I team) could decide of better criteria to activate languages (this was the point of most of the discussion I had in list with Frans).

Unless someone actively disagrees, I will start working on marking our 1686 strings as soon as possible (that's quite a huge work), so plaese comment quickly, particularly if you dislike the suggestion.

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Received on Sat Nov 10 01:47:08 2007