[Localization] Best practices for developers

[Khaled Hosny]

I highly recommend against using '%s' in translatable strings, as in
case of several format code in one string, some languages might omit
one of them which will crash the application. For example:

"%d books on %s"

The first three plural forms in Arabic will be like:

"no books on %s"
"one book on %s"
"two books on %s"

And this will cause a crash.

On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 11:00:58AM -0600, James Simmons wrote:
> Bert,
> 
> I did have a chance to try out using %s in translated strings and it
> worked fine, so I modified the chapter on Pootle in the book to
> recommend the technique.  As the book is intended for beginners I
> think what I put in there is adequate.
> 
> James Simmons
> 
> 
> On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 3:03 PM, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de> wrote:
> > On 08.03.2010, at 15:44, Clytie Siddall wrote:
> >>
> >> Reminder for developers: long strings are bad localization practice! Translators avoid them, since they have very little time available (thus you don't get the translation); there's much more room for error and confusion (so you get bad translations); translators can't review the string properly (more errors); and finally, most translation editors don't expect long strings, so they don't handle them well (confused and grumpy translators).
> >
> > Is there as document somewhere for "best practices" in making activities translatable?
> >
> > I found an old discussion on the OLPC wiki:
> > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Python_i18n
> >
> > And this on the Sugar wiki:
> > http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Translation_Team/i18n_Best_Practices
> >
> > But I'm pretty sure I've seen a more general discussion somewhere ...
> >
> > James is going to add some of these hints to his activity developing book:
> > http://en.flossmanuals.net/bin/view/ActivitiesGuideSugar/GoingInternationalWithPootle
> >
> > So if you feel there is something you need budding activity developers to know, tell him ;)
> >
> > - Bert -
> >
> >
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-- 
 Khaled Hosny
 Arabic localiser and member of Arabeyes.org team
 Free font developer