Re: Foreign Languages / interface translation

[Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl>]

At 05:30 PM 9/12/00 +0200, you wrote:

>definitions, and to correct some typos. I'd also like to know if the
>headtexts left empty are to be left that way, or the correct name is to be
>inserted.

It depends. I think you can add the labels after % so that users who want
them, can take their pick. I'm thinking of an option to set them as well as
turn them on and off. So, even if not normally used, just add them. 

>> (1) mult-com.tex
>
>How do I change this files? The format is somewhat strange, and for some
>of them I don't know the correct translation, or it's quite longish. Does
>this pose any problem?

Do not change the files yet. Just prepare a list first or make sure that we
can use a perl script to merge the files. We must not get out of tune. 

There is no problem in the length, but keep an eye on what users want. If
you don't know the translation yet, keep it english for the moment.  

>> (2) mult-con.tex
>
>For this one, some other problems arise: names can depend on the gender of
>the next word, or even on the starting letter: one is "uno" (the number, or
>reffering to a male, and with the next word beggining with two consonants),
>"un" is male, with next word beginning with simple consonant or with vowel,
>and "una" is female; which should I put?

Czech also has that problem. The 'one' is used as a stand alone number, in
mult-con there are only keywords and values. Although we may some day
consider a gender specific label prefix mechanism (when needed).  

>For both the previous files, is it possible to do something in such a way
>that italian keys are defined, e.g., like english?

yes: 

dutch: dutchkey    englishkey 
       germankey   czechkey 
       italiankey

>> (3) grep on \startmessages
>
>I translated them. This was the easy part :-)

All of them? That's fast! You can test that with the file cont-it.tex i'll
send you.   

  texexec --make --alone it 

will generate you a version with an english interface and italian messages.

>Does this mean that all I have to do is add the italian translation and then
>send you the appropriate files?

messages    : isolate them in one file
keys/values : add a header 'italian' and add keywords, use - for unknown
entries 

Hans

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