[Kde-games-devel] Support for i18n in data files

[Chusslove Illich]

> [: Albert Astals Cid :]
> I'm CC'ing Contact Chusslove Illich as he seems to be the person in
> charge for the new i18n structure along with Nicolas Goutte. [...]

The "person in charge" thingy suddenly makes me feel claustrophobic :)

> > [: Ian Wadham :]
> > Does anybody know if either KDE 4 or Qt 4 have any plans to
> > support translation of strings in data files (i18n or tr)?

Well, texts must somehow be translated into PO files. This can be two way, 
either by having extraction system support some formats other than 
sources, or as it is now, having programmers somehow reduce the data to 
known format.

I agree that having only source files as extraction target is not enough, 
but it would also be hard to design some special format, well matched to 
many different needs out there. People would anyway end up converting 
stuff from this to that.

I would only urge that translations are done at runtime, rather than 
collecting data back from translated PO files and building static 
translations (eg. as is done now for .desktop files), regardles where they 
come from. Static translations have caused confusion in the past, as well 
as more fragile release cycle (eg. documentation problems). In other 
words:

myformat.en -> english PO -> translated PO -> myformat.lang -> read 
myformat.lang at runtime <-- BAD

myformat.en -> english PO -> translated PO -> i18n calls on data read from 
myformat.en at runtime <-- GOOD

> But if Chusslove could find us a better solution we will both be
> happy :-)
>
> Chusslove, what you say?

No miracles this time, sorry :)

I'm only thinking about, rarely but possibly, needed localization of 
images. For example, bold, underlined, italic icons, or KDE splash 
screens. May come usefull for games too.

I'm having in mind something like an i18n call for images, where an image 
file would be first looked for in locale directory, and default to 
original application's resource otherwise. In fact, maybe it could be 
general file-resolution i18n call, be it an image, sound, or whatever.

Hm, now that I've said it, text can also be arranged in a structured file 
of sort... But it is nevertheless better to have text available for 
translation through PO files, due to extensive existing support.

(Sorry for late reply, I'm in a bit of a crunch time these days :)

-- 
Chusslove Illich (Часлав Илић)
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