[Nano-devel] Nano translation: 40 characters maximum in --help

[Mario Blättermann]

Hello,

I'm translating Nano into German for some years. Recently a reviewer
found a problem in the --help output:

#. TRANSLATORS: The next fourteen strings are toggle descriptions;
#. * they are best kept shorter than 40 characters, but may be longer.
...
#: src/nano.c:792
msgid "Convert typed tabs to spaces"
msgstr "Eingegebebene Tabulatoren in Leerzeichen umwandeln"

This string (and not the only one) is almost impossible to shrink to
40 characters in German. I thought about a forced line break, but
don't know if this would work:

#: src/nano.c:792
msgid "Convert typed tabs to spaces"
msgstr ""
"Eingegebebene Tabulatoren in Leerzeichen\n"
"  umwandeln"

I have to make sure that both lines stand one below the other, with an
indention of two characters at the second and any following lines.
Would this appear as expected?

BTW, Nano has an unusual way to present the help output to
translators. Most other projects place the parameters and the
associated descriptions in one string (example from procps-ng):

#: free.c:89
msgid " -l, --lohi          show detailed low and high memory statistics\n"
msgstr ""
" -l, --lohi          detaillierte Statistiken für hohe und niedrige\n"

" Speicherbelegung anzeigen\n"

This is better for us, because we can place the needed whitespaces and
see the effect immediately, as long as the editor is configured to use
a Monospace font (I know, maybe it is hard to recognize in this mail
body, see [1]).

[1] http://translationproject.org/PO-files/de/procps-ng-3.3.13-rc1.de.po

Best Regards,
Mario