discuss-gnustep
[Top][All Lists]
Advanced

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: How to localize keyEquivalent="q"?


From: Nicola Pero
Subject: Re: How to localize keyEquivalent="q"?
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2010 18:06:49 +0100


Maybe that's wrong - I'm not sure.  Do people change the
keyEquivalents from one language to the other ? My feeling/ experience
was that keyboard shortcut are usually the same across languages.

If they don't do, they should, but everyone should make a decision
whether she/he want or want not. I would because I think that that
everyone like (or know) it's native (first) language much better than
other languages, so if in English for 'Quit' stand a shortcut 'q' then
why don't is there in Hungarian for 'Kilép' a shortcut 'k'?!

I'm not sure, but our of interest I looked at the Apple Human Interface Guidelines and they seem to require 'Command-q' for 'Quit' regardless of the language. ;-)

I actually happen to agree with you that 'Command-q' is not a particularly good choice for quit in most languages since there is no relationship between 'q' and the word for quit in most languages ... On the other hand, even in English, there doesn't seem to be a particular logic in the choice of Command-v for Paste (other than x, c, v are in a row in the keyboard), Command-z for Undo and Command-w for close (other than it's near q). There seem to be some logic in some other choices,
such as Command-s for Save.

But a reasonable point of view is that the key equivalents are actually semi-random
letters ... in all languages, including English ;-)

If we want to change them when using a different language, we need to make sure we use the same letter in all applications. Eg, all programs, when you run in Hungarian, should use the same letter for 'Quit'. Consistency is much more important
than translating the key! ;-)

So, it may be easier to stick with 'Command-q' for 'quit' regardless of the language, or if we do want to translate it, we need to agree on what letter to use for each standard action
in each language.

We could presumably setup and publish a list of the standard key equivalents in all the standard languages. I'm not too convinced by this idea as it could easily turn into a nightmare, particularly when applications, as they often are, are not entirely translated into your language, or are only partially translated. Then you may get into the problem that some key equivalents are the English ones, some of them are the Hungarian ones, and it would be very confusing; when you open up a new application and press 'Command-q', you'd have no idea of what action you'd be triggering. :-(

So ... all in all, I wouldn't translate them ;-)

Thanks


reply via email to

[Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread]