View source for Making Audacity Translatable

{{intro|1=Some guidelines for developers to make Audacity source code translatable.|2=}}

'''Useful Links:'''
* [https://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Localization/i18n_Mistakes KDE i18n Guidelines]
* [[Translating_Audacity/Writing_Translatable_Code]]



Some languages prefer other '''punctuation conventions''', such as «these» quotes, or such as leaving a space left of a colon  -- Therefore:
{{hint|
* Use _() even for a format like _("%s: %s") that contains only % slots and punctuation.}}

Some languages vary words contextually, such as for '''gender agreement''' or case, though this happens very little in English -- Therefore:
{{hint|
* Avoid putting small isolated words into _() which you then substitute into a longer string. 
** Instead make longer phrases in _() containing words to be translated in context.  
** Do this even at the cost of repetitious code that defines more strings, varying only the short word inside a longer phrase}}

Some languages prefer different '''word order''', such as Japanese with verbs last and postpositions rather than prepositions. -- Therefore:
{{hint|
* Avoid composition of user-visible strings using contatentation (+ operator) of many single words and short phrases.  
** Use format substitutions instead to put words in place.  Concatenate long phrases and clauses only.}}

For example:

 AudacityMessageBox(_("Could not open file: ") + fileName); // wrong
 AudacityMessageBox( wxString::Format( _("Could not open file: %s"), fileName )); // right

Some languages have '''more than two number forms of nouns''' (singular and plural); most of the Slavics have complicated case-agreement rules for various numerals, and Arabic has a dual.  -- Therefore: 
{{hint|
* Use the '''wxPLURAL''' macro, which cooperates with the message catalog system, so that a language can provide more than two translations as appropriate, and the run-time lookup chooses the right one according to a number.}}

For example:

  // wrong:
  auto format = iHours == 1 ? _("%d hour") : _("%d hours");
  auto sHours = wxString::Format( format, iHours );
 
  // right:
  auto sHours =
     wxString::Format( wxPLURAL("%d hour", "%d hours", iHours), iHours );

Note that strings in the wxPLURAL macro must not be prefixed.  The macro inserts wxT().

{{hint|In general, 
* Substitute only names and numbers into translated formats, not results of other translations.  

But there remain some difficult cases where that rule must be relaxed.}}