Translation and shortcuts best practice

[drMerry]

Hi all,

Just a question about translations.
I had a discussion with another translator about this, and I would like to hear some other opinions.

INTRO
While translating calibre, you will also have to translate the shortcuts
e.g. on a button.

The shortcut is marked with the & character.

Change &cover

means: press c to use the change cover function (in calibre you will see the c is underlined.
/INTRO

So, during translation, you will get problems translating the exact word. E.g. in dutch the translation of cover is omslag. As you can see, no c.

So, what should I do in general, there are 4 options

1. Choose another word
2. Use the same word but don't create a shortcut
3. Use the same word, add an extra character
4. Use the same word but just create another shortcut

In the case &cover it would be:

1. Omslag (voor &calibre)
2. Omslag
3. Omslag &c
4. &Omslag

There is no good other translation for cover containing a c so I added "used in caliber" at the end for 1.

My opinion is, you should use 1 if possible, otherwise 2.
4 would be bad practice in my opinion for 4 reasons:

1. If you are used to shortcuts, you do need the same shortcut in all languages. If d means duplicate in one language and delete in another, you do have a problem (if you disable the warning messages, you will have a big problem).
2. If you get duplicate shortcuts on 1 screen, the shortcut won't work or will have unexpected behavior.
3. If you mange to check all duplicates, and Kovid adds a text that uses the shortcut you chose for a translated item, you do have a problem again.
4. It is (in my opinion) unmanageable, and if the original translator does leave the project, you will have to read all shortcuts to be sure no conflicts are created (not even talking about translators that just pop-in....)

The pro's of using 1, 2 and 3 are:
- Shortcuts stay the same in all languages (when using 2, some shortcuts won't work, but the are not used for another function either).
- When new functions are available, you just have to translate the same shortcut, and you do not have to check if the shortcuts are occupied already (I trust Kovid doing this for the original translation)

The pro for using four would be:
All shortcuts are translated so all functions that do have a shortcut will have one after translating
You do not have to use 'bad' translations (e.g. you can use "&station" and not "&railroad stop" if the original translation requires a &r)

But personally speaking, the cons are much bigger than the pros.
What do you think?

[kovidgoyal]

These shortcuts do not refer to single key shortcuts. You have too press Alt+the key and even then, all that happens in the corresponding control is selected.

The single letter shortcuts are translated separately and you should almost always leave them as is, unless you really, really know what you are doing.

[drMerry]

I'm sorry,

I was referring to the alt + shortcuts.
Is your last sentence also applicable on the alt + ?
In that case we do have the same opinion.
And which translation should be preferred in case problematic cases,

2 or 3?

(2 = extra character; 3 = no translated shortcut)

[kovidgoyal]

With the text shortcuts you should use whatever letter makes sense for the translation. So for example, &cover -> &Omslag

With the single letter shortcuts, they should remain the same:

So C -> C, D -> D and so on

[drMerry]

All right,

Thank you.
But then how do you solve these problems:

1. duplicate assignments
a-How to detect
b-How to inform translators about used shortcuts
c-How to react on new translations (e.g. if you add an extra button &open in the same screen as &omslag)
d-what will happen when a character is pressed that is assigned two times?
2-How to support people using various languages (e.g. If I have &cover -> &omslag + st&op server -> server uits&chakelen) in this translation the shortcuts for people using the English version are opposite of the people using the translated version.

[kovidgoyal]

Duplicate dont matter. If you have two control with shortcut Alt+C then when you press Alt+C the first time, the first control is selected, when you press it again, the next one will be selected. There are duplicates in the original english as well.

[tEmrich]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

With the text shortcuts you should use whatever letter makes sense for the translation. So for example, &cover -> &Omslag

I did it the same way with german translations but tried not to produce duplicates wherever possible (i.e. by using another prominent character). This is a nice workflow AND you can keep correct and consistent translations.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by tEmrich

I did it the same way with german translations but tried not to produce duplicates wherever possible (i.e. by using another prominent character). This is a nice workflow AND you can keep correct and consistent translations.

Indeed it is good to try to avoid duplicates as far as possible, but sometimes it cannot be helped.