using gettext for .desktop translations

[Chusslove Illich]

> [: Jonathan Riddell :]
> There was a posting about this to the xdg list once upon a time but since
> the maintainers of the .desktop spec have long since fallen off the
> internet it didn't go anywhere. So the process has to start here.

This would be great. But it should produce an update to .desktop spec
document *before* we change anything in translation system on KDE's side. So
that when someone comes in complaining about broken .desktop files
translation-wise, he can be pointed to the updated spec.

Do you already have a proposal (given experience in Ubuntu)?

You probably haven't deliberated about disambiguation contexts so far, and
neither have I in this sense (my internal solution in KDE was a comment in
.desktop file, but this is not acceptable for dynamic translation). How
about having a *-Context counterpart to every translatable field (as they
are currently listed in the spec)?

Another thing is that I don't see how to define this without linking the
.desktop spec to a particular runtime translation system, here Gettext. To
me this is just fine because I hold Gettext to be the superior solution, but
I expect it not to be fine with everyone. E.g. a pure Qt application, using
Qt's native runtime translation system, would have to provide and install PO
files merely for the sake of its .desktop files.

-- 
Chusslove Illich (Часлав Илић)
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