Re: Should we localize keyEquivalent?

[Paul Chany]

Nicola Pero <nicola.pero@meta-innovation.com> writes:

> 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. ;-)

All right then.

> 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

Exactly that is what I mean.

> ... 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.

I think Command-v for Paste has been chosed because character V is like
an arrow that is pointed down..  Command-w associates for Window and
indeed, it's near q.

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

Indeed.

> 'Quit'.  Consistency is much more important than translating the key!

It's true.

> 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.

But, in a Menu there is the word Quit naming the action and beside that
word 'Quit' is shortcut 'q'. Similarly in Hungarian there is a word
'Kilép' and beside it could be 'k' and nobody can be confused because
everyone can see the word and the first letter of that word as a
shortcut. But this is only my thought.

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

OK then! Thank you for the explanation! I understand that translation of
an application has a philosophy and one must follow some Guidelines when
she/he want to translate a software. :)

-- 
Regards,
Paul Chany
You can freely correct my English.
http://csanyi-pal.info