Difference between revisions of "Making Audacity Translatable"
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Some languages prefer different '''word order''', such as Japanese with verbs last and postpositions rather than prepositions. -- Therefore: | Some languages prefer different '''word order''', such as Japanese with verbs last and postpositions rather than prepositions. -- Therefore: | ||
{{hint| | {{hint| | ||
| − | * Avoid composition of user-visible strings using | + | * Avoid composition of user-visible strings using concatenation (+ operator) of many single words and short phrases. |
** Use format substitutions instead to put words in place. Concatenate long phrases and clauses only.}} | ** Use format substitutions instead to put words in place. Concatenate long phrases and clauses only.}} | ||
Latest revision as of 12:17, 3 September 2021
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This page has been deprecated. Newer information can be found here: https://github.com/audacity/audacity/wiki/Strings-&-translatable-code |
| The information on this page are likely out-of-date and will not be updated in the forseeable future. It may be removed at any time. |
| Some guidelines for developers to make Audacity source code translatable.
|
Useful Links:
Some languages prefer other punctuation conventions, such as «these» quotes, or such as leaving a space left of a colon -- Therefore:
- 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:
- 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:
- Avoid composition of user-visible strings using concatenation (+ 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:
- 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().
In general,
- Substitute only names and numbers into translated formats, not results of other translations.
