Translation guidelines?

[memark]

Just started helping MauserMan out on the Swedish translation this morning. I have come up with a few general questions:

* Are you allowed to modify the look of a window in a NIB (e.g. slightly moving a text field) to make a word fit? Or are you supposed to find a shorter (and possibly less godd) word?

* Are you supposed to use strict or casual language? Surely I could look at the English translation, but my feeling for my own language is obviously much more refined.

* Are you allowed to stick with certain English words when there is no good translation? (e.g. ”idle") Or are the translations aimed at an audience with no English knowledge at all?

* Is it important to always translate a specific term in the same way? Or could you use the word mest appropriate in the context?

Regards
M

[memark]

* What is the relation between the Localizable.strings and the NIB files? E.g. the string "service icons" (from Preferences / Appearance) exists in both places. It appears Localizable.strings takes precedence. Are these items dynamically generated?

[evands]

Just started helping MauserMan out on the Swedish translation this morning.

Great

* Are you allowed to modify the look of a window in a NIB (e.g. slightly moving a text field) to make a word fit? Or are you supposed to find a shorter (and possibly less godd) word?

If the nib file is in the English.lproj folder, you can do anything you want with it to make your translation look right. Let us know if you have spacing issues with a nib which is in the root Resources folder, as you can not modify those in any way.

* Are you supposed to use strict or casual language? Surely I could look at the English translation, but my feeling for my own language is obviously much more refined.

Do whatever translated OS X apps normally do in your language... the important thing is that Adium should feel natural to your language's users/

* Are you allowed to stick with certain English words when there is no good translation? (e.g. ”idle") Or are the translations aimed at an audience with no English knowledge at all?

Again, this has to make sense for your language... if no such word exists at all, I guess you need to use the English word and basically make it part of your language's dictionary... the translations are aimed at a typical native speaker, so this is again completely your judgement call as to what will feel natural.

* Is it important to always translate a specific term in the same way? Or could you use the word mest appropriate in the context?

Use the best phrase you can.

* What is the relation between the Localizable.strings and the NIB files? E.g. the string "service icons" (from Preferences / Appearance) exists in both places. It appears Localizable.strings takes precedence. Are these items dynamically generated?

Strings in the nib files in the root Resources folder are dynamically generated from the Localizable.strings file, yes. As mentioned above, you should not need to modify anything outside your .lproj folder; there are still a few minor places which you just can't get to yet, which we're working to correct, so please let us know if you run into problems.

[memark]

* What is the relation between the Localizable.strings and the NIB files? E.g. the string "service icons" (from Preferences / Appearance) exists in both places. It appears Localizable.strings takes precedence. Are these items dynamically generated?

Strings in the nib files in the root Resources folder are dynamically generated from the Localizable.strings file, yes. As mentioned above, you should not need to modify anything outside your .lproj folder; there are still a few minor places which you just can't get to yet, which we're working to correct, so please let us know if you run into problems.

Let me clarify. A few views/words/sentences show up in multiple places. E.g. the string "service icons" (from Preferences / Appearance) exists BOTH in a nib in English.lproj, AND in Localizable.strings (taking precedence) in English.lproj. This is not really a problem, but it seems a bit odd, and I'm just wondering whether there's been a mistake here. (As I understand from your explanation, a nib with text fields set at runtime should not be in the English.lproj folder in the first place.)

* When the translation is finished, where does one send it? Is there a deadline for the next release?

* Do translations differ much between versions? We have now been translating 0.81. Should we download the 0.82 beta instead? What would be the differences?

I'm trying to keep my questions as general as possible and I think a "translation FAQ" would be of great help to newcomers such as myself!

Perhaps a link from the Support/Development part of adiumx.com would be helpful? As I mentioned, this (new) place was not easy to find!

[Tryggve]

Hi,

Just as I wrote in another thread on Sat, I have a complete Swedish lproj folder to download if you want some hints.

Regards

[memark]

I would also like to emphasise the need for explanatory comments in the Localizable.strings file. Several entries have to be translated by changing it to something rubbish, and then searching for it in Adium. E.g.

/* No comment provided by engineer. */
"Custom" = "Custom";

Custom what..? (Very difficult to translate imho.)

On the other hand, several explanations are excellent, e.g.:

/* A time interval such as '3 days' will be shown avter this identifier */
"Online For" = "Online For";

[memark]

Yet another question!

When dealing with numbers, the format confuses me somewhat. Could someone please explain why it looks different on the two sides? How should I format my translation?

/* file size measured in kilobytes out of some other measurement */
"%.1f KB of %@" = "%1$.1f KB of %2$@";

[evands]

Let me clarify. A few views/words/sentences show up in multiple places. E.g. the string "service icons" (from Preferences / Appearance) exists BOTH in a nib in English.lproj, AND in Localizable.strings (taking precedence) in English.lproj. This is not really a problem, but it seems a bit odd, and I'm just wondering whether there's been a mistake here. (As I understand from your explanation, a nib with text fields set at runtime should not be in the English.lproj folder in the first place.)

Technically the string could be completely cleared from the nib file, as it is set based on whatever is in the Localizable.strings. However, when laying out the original nib file (in English), it was convenient for the fields not to be blank... and then they just weren't cleared afterwards. I'd recommend translating in both places for your own reference, but most likely the above is what happened.

* When the translation is finished, where does one send it? Is there a deadline for the next release?

Send me an email, evan at adiumx dot com, and I'll add you to the adium-translators mailing list. That's where to direct it

* Do translations differ much between versions? We have now been translating 0.81. Should we download the 0.82 beta instead? What would be the differences?

Certainly some differences. Changes are generally minimal between minor releases, 0.81 to 0.82... the move to 0.90 will probably be much bigger. After your initial translation is in, and basing that off 0.81 is just fine, you'll receive files intended for the Localizer program to which I'll link you from the list... they let you easily update your translation to match any minor changes which have occurred.

I'm trying to keep my questions as general as possible and I think a "translation FAQ" would be of great help to newcomers such as myself!
Perhaps a link from the Support/Development part of adiumx.com would be helpful? As I mentioned, this (new) place was not easy to find!

Definitely! Will work on compiling these and others into a document.

[evands]

I would also like to emphasise the need for explanatory comments in the Localizable.strings file. Several entries have to be translated by changing it to something rubbish, and then searching for it in Adium. E.g.

/* No comment provided by engineer. */
"Custom" = "Custom";

Custom what..? (Very difficult to translate imho.)

We've been trying to expand those comments to make them more useful... will search on that one and fix it at some point.

[evands]

Yet another question!

When dealing with numbers, the format confuses me somewhat. Could someone please explain why it looks different on the two sides? How should I format my translation?

/* file size measured in kilobytes out of some other measurement */
"%.1f KB of %@" = "%1$.1f KB of %2$@";

Ordering. %.1f is a placeholder for a particular number format; you don't need to worry about what specifically. Th added 1$ on the right side means that it corresponds to the first placeholder. The %@ becomes %2$@ because the 2$ means it corresponds to the second placeholder.

Your translation might reverse the order; the 1$ and 2$ let you do that. So you could type

Code: Select all

%2$@ fo BK %1$.1f

if you wanted to make it show up backwards.

[memark]

Thank you for your explanation!

Moving on to the plugins, I've found some terms I can't understand even in English.

* What on earth does "Export Sametime List..." mean?

* "perfect forward secrecy"? (apparently a feature of OTR)

* "Balancer handshake"? I know what a handshake between computers is, but Balancer?

[evands]

* What on earth does "Export Sametime List..." mean?

Sametime is a protocol, like AIM or MSN. Export Sametime List creates a file with the contents of the Sametime buddy list.

* "perfect forward secrecy"? (apparently a feature of OTR)

It means that your messages remain secret into the future... The OTR website describes it as "If you lose control of your private keys, no previous conversation is compromised."

* "Balancer handshake"? I know what a handshake between computers is, but Balancer?

Technical term of the connection steps of some protocol or another, I don't recall which. Not currently even displayed though it might be at some point in the future which is why we have it marked translatable. If on the screen at all it would be only briefly; you can safely translate just handshake or ignore the whole phrase, really.