Re: use translation context for translations of in-document strings?

[Patrice Dumas]

On Sat, Nov 05, 2022 at 07:43:17PM +0000, Gavin Smith wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 05, 2022 at 05:25:07PM +0100, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > It will become possible to add translation context to in-document
> > translated strings in developments to come.  I am not sure in which
> > situations it will be better to use contexts to be clearer on the
> > intended use of a translated string.  In particular there are, for HTML,
> > many direction strings translations that can be used in different
> > contexts and may have the same words to translate.  For example,
> > 'Index' is translated in 3 different contexts:
> > * to represent a button label,
> > * as a short text for the direction,
> > * or as the longer direction description
> 
> Are there translators who would translate "Index" in more than one
> way in some language?

That's more or less my question...

> > Another context that could be added when there is some translation would
> > be to give an idea on the command being associated with the translation,
> > or the class of command.  For example there is '{number} {section_title}'
> > to be translated, which is for a section number, I am not sure that
> > '{number} {section_title}' is explicit, maybe adding a context, like
> > 'sectioning command' would be better.
> 
> If translators need more advice then it is possible to put comments
> next to translated strings.  This is done with the -c option of
> xgettext; see e.g. Info node '(gettext)Bug Report Address' and
> XGETTEXT_OPTIONS in po/Makefile.
> 
> I'm not sure if there is a problem with strings like '{number} 
> {section_title}'
> but if there was, do you think these comments would be good enough?

For this case, it could be the best solution, as what is missing is only
information, but for the case above, context could be better as in
addition to missing information, it may be relevant to separate the
different contexts, to be able to give a different translation for the
different contexts.

-- 
Pat