Re: [gentoo-doc] GuideXML: define values & use conditional tags

[Xavier Neys]

Flammie Pirinen wrote:
> 2006-06-22, Xavier Neys sanoi, jotta:
>
>> With a new release coming out soon(-ish), we're going to have to hunt
>> and update quite a few variable data such as snapshot
>> names/locations, CD sizes, kernel versions in all our handbooks.
>> Some time ago, we discussed the possibility of defining values at the
>> beginning of the handbooks so that we need only update each value
>> once, always at the same place.
>
>> If you guys like it, it goes in, but if you think is too complex or
>> too much work to maintain, I shall not push it down your throat :)
>>
>>
>> Feedback welcome,
>
> The change towards variables for version information and such is good
> per se, but as translator I should probably remind, that using
> variables does make creating good translations a bit harder. As an
> example, translation of
> "[...] <keyval id="arch"/> systems and <keyval id="arch"/>
> clones [...]"
> will be "<keyval id="arch"/>-järjestelmät ja <keyval
> id="arch"/>-kloonit" if and only if <keyval/> doesn't contain spaces,
> otherwise hyphens must be preceded by spaces. Variables also
> practically prevent use of any affixes, which will reduce the quality of
> translations in languages with rich morphology, such as Finnish.
>
> So, what I'm basically suggesting is only to avoid overusing these
> variables. While they are mostly fine in version numbers,
> file system paths and such codes, they may cause problems in names,
> phrases and such.

I expect no less than translators being able to just cut'n'paste the values.
If it causes trouble to translators, something must be fixed asap and I trust
you'll report any issues :)


Cheers,
-- 
/  Xavier Neys
\_ Gentoo Documentation Project
/
/\ http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/