Re: [Phpgroupware-developers] to all devel's and translators: Format of the lang-phrases in phpgw

[Dave Hall]

Guillaume Courtois <address@hidden> wrote:

> >some talks with gugux and skwashd have been starting the discussion
> >which forms the lang-phrases (textual string send to the lang 
> function
> >in the phpgw sources) should have:
> >
> >
> >The actual sources show two forms:
> >a) 'user x wants x from you!!!' and in phpgw_en.lang: user x 
> wants x from
> you!!!        app     en
> 
> 
> >User %1 wants %2 from you!!!
> >b) 'user %1 wants %2 from you!!!' and in phpgw_en.lang: user %1 
> wants %2
> >from you!!!  app     en      User %1 wants %2 from you!!!
> >
> 
> >(Please note all phrases (in the source and the 1st field in the
> >lang-file) should be lowercase. Only the translation (4th field) 
> in the
> >lang-files should mixed case. This is for performance reasons.)
> >
> 
> >Both forms work in most cases, but there are a few problems with a)
> >(using the x's):
> >1) if there is no translation in a selected language for a phrase 
> like
> >the example in a) you will get the message: 'User x wants x from
> >you!!!*' and not just the correct english version with a '*'. 
> That can
> >make a uncomplete translation (which unfortunally most are) unusable.
> >2) the developer_tools app, which gather the phrases automaticaly 
> from
> >the code, generate a lang-file with %'s (same is true for the 
> eTemplates)
> 
> >
> >Specialy because of 1) I would strongly suggest to use only the 
> form b)
> >(the %'s) in the source.
> >
> 
> 
> >If we going to change the existing code to only one form it 
> should be
> >form b). I think that is a good think, but it is an enormous 
> task, as it
> >requires to change all lang-files to not run in to probs like 1).
> >Because of that, I think, it should not be done in the stable branch,
> >but in HEAD. This has to do with the fact, that changed or added 
> phrases
> >are not automaticaly put into effect after a cvs update (you have to
> >manually run setup/language management and for changed phrases 
> even with
> >the setting 'delete all and insert new ones').
> 
> Ok, here is my comment :
> 
> When I first worked on the stable branch to add the missing 
> english phrases and so,
> appeared the problem with the phrases with parameters.
> 
> As I did not know which syntax was the best, I asked to the dev-
> list what to do.
> Unfortunately Ralf was not around and I did not get any response.

I was involved in these discussions, but I must admit that I am not
completely familar with the translation system.

> 
> So I checked the whole phrases with parameters in stable. Approx. 
> 80 % or them had
> the a) syntax, and 20 % had the b) one.

Yeah it made sense to use x's based on that.

> 
> Then I checked the translate function in the API and saw that both 
> syntaxes were
> working if the phrase was translated.
> 
> My big mistake has been here to not think about the case where the 
> phrase is not
> translated, as Ralf did.

Neither did I

> 
> Also, I believed that if 80 % of the phrases had the a) syntax, 
> then maybe it was
> because of a problem in the translate function with % which could 
> have been wrongly
> interpreted (non-escaped character or so).
> 
> So I decided to change the 20 % to have all the phrases with the 
> a) syntax.
> 
> Now here is the situation :
> - all the phrases in stable have the a) syntax
> - the phrases in head have one of the two syntaxes
> 
> Globally, I prefer the b) syntax too, easier to compare, better 
> for scripts, etc ...
> 
> So my opinion for the head branch is to use the b) syntax from now.

I agree

> 
> For the stable branch, we can
> - roolback my changes on the phrases with parameters
> - change all the phrases to the b) syntax
> 
> I'm of course candidate to make one of these changes if dev people 
> decide to do so !
> (and think that the second solution would be a good idea).
> 
> Ok, I'm waiting too for comments and well ... sorry for the 
> problems I caused !

Not your fault ... You did check with me first.  I think it should be
standardized in both branches.  I think it should be considered a bug
fix.  What do others think?

Cheers

Dave

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