Source string contextualization

[Nilamdyuti Goswami]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kévin Raymond" <shaiton at fedoraproject.org>
To: ngoswami at redhat.com
Cc: "Development discussions related to Fedora" <devel at lists.fedoraproject.org>, "For participants of the Documentation Project" <docs at lists.fedoraproject.org>, "trans" <trans at lists.fedoraproject.org>, sscg at lists.fedoraproject.org
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 9:47:08 PM
Subject: Re: Source string contextualization

>
> It is *just* about improving the source code?
>
> It is about providing Translators' comment or precise context to the
> confusing source strings in the source code of the application so that the
> resultant pot/po files have that context and it becomes easy for the
> translators to translate the confusing strings.

By doing that, I think you go to improve the way strings are defined also.
For example "a string" "could be spread" "in many" which result on
something not translatable is some languages.

Yes, in many cases the source string itself requires rephrasing, redefinition or
proper positioning (in case of split sentences). So, we have that aspect in our mind
as well.  We shall report the concerned developer or maintainer about such strings 
whenever we come across them and suggest the corrections. However, its implementation
depends entirely on the discretion of the developer or maintainer as unlike providing
contexts, it would be modifying the source string itself.

>
> There is already a Transifex feature which can help provide context
> without having to edit the source code.
>
> If Transifex has this feature, we would like to know more about it because
> this can be a more direct solution to the problem. :-)

What seems to do the trick is
http://support.transifex.com/customer/portal/articles/1188235-comments-on-source-strings
one can comment a string (to all translators, but in the language he
choose), and event report an issue for his team or the developer (I
don't know if they listen to us...)

This is definitely a real time method of reporting an issue to the developer and is a good feature
but to make it get noticed, I think filing a bug for the issue is better.

Of course, there is no perfect solution, but checking every project
sources might be a huge work. (with no end)

Agreed, but at least if a note is taken every time we come across confusing source strings while translating,
later at the time of providing contexts, we don't need to scan the entire source code line by line. Moreover,
making modification at the source code level is a more permanent solution to the problem.