Translations of bzr-explorer

[Algis Kabaila]

Philippe,
On Thursday 15 October 2009 08:12:11 Philippe Lhoste wrote:
> On 14/10/2009 00:41, Algis Kabaila wrote:
> > The instructions to the translators say that whenever symbols like & and
> > % occur, they should be faithfully copied.  I noticed in the French
> > translation a couple of examples of this:
> >
> > E&xit  ---> &Quitter
> > Bazaar Explorer &Help ---> &Aid de Bazaar Explorer
> >
> > What does the special character & mean?
>
> In Windows at least, when the right option is checked (it was by default
> before XP), the character preceded by this symbol is underlined.

Ah, that brings to my memory Delphi menus. It makes sense that it probably 
means the same thing in the Linux world.

If and only if  (iff)  that is the case, I will need to go through the 
translation again and either eliminate all &, or keep the same letter after 
it.  In Lithuanian, which is an old Indo European language, the opportunities 
are neglibily small  to keep the same letter after & as in the original.  I 
recall one  E&xit in the original. The letter x is not used in Lithuanian.  I 
think it would be better in such circumstances to translate to something like 
this:

E&xit
Išvykti - &x

It would be impossible to re-invent the wheel with a new set of letters that 
call a certain action.  That would also depend on the context. You have 
pointed that out succinctly:

> In general, I try and keep the same letter (character) than the English
> one, if I can. But one should also avoid conflicts, ie. identical
> shortcuts in the same menu or dialog. 

Indeed!
>
> We can also see sentences like: "Delete file %s?"
> The %s will be replaced by the filename (or other parameters elsewhere),
> so must be kept as is. Idem for %d (numerical value).

This does not present the same difficulty as menu or shortcut items.  I feel 
reasonably confident that % can easily be handled well in a translation.

Thank you for bringing this up and for reposting part of my email to you to 
this mailing list.  BTW, in many circumstances I woud consider, probably 
mistakenly, a repost of private mail on a mailing list poor netiquette, which 
is quite justified in this case.  It even might assist other translators, too.

Kind regards,

OldAl.

-- 
Algis Kabaila, MEngSc, PhD(Eng)
http://akabaila.pcug.org.au/StructuralAnalysis.pdf