[Gimp-docs] To all tanslators

[Hans de Jonge]

On Thu, 25 May 2006, Jakub Friedl wrote:

>
>> This way I think we would lose the one GIMP manual. We instead would
>> have a dozen books that more and more will diverse or even die.
>> Be sure I know many of the multi-language annoyances in our files,
>> but anyway I think they are the only way to get ONE manual in
>> different languages. This stays true as long as we work on a day by
>> day basis on the (en) manual, not having a strong focus on en an
>> timing. To change that would mean we'd need a schedule with fixed(!)
>> deadlines. "Somebody" would write and finish (!) the en book and then
>> all the "ohters" would take that bible and translate it into their
>> respective language. - AFAIK is this not the style of work that fits
>> our needs and pleasures.
>
> I do not agree. There is no need to keep all the manuals same (and it is not
> the case now, anyway). What we need is to keep the same basic structure,
> which is basically defined by help IDs. No need to have identical books.

Hmmm, I have strong feeling of disagreement with you:

The `one story per file, select your preferred language' is a good way to
preserve the style of the manual over all languages; although the sentences
can be rearanged in several ways, this limits the amount with which a
paragraph can drift from its original meaning. Why would we want differences
in explanation when we try to explain about the same programme???

> I actually thought that there was already a consensus to split the files
> and it wasnt done yet because of technical reasons.

I would even prefer it if there were a way to put different language versions
into the same PNG-files; `When compiling the book; select the appropriate
language, if its not available select the default instead': we are working on
the `source code': The HTML, pdf, etc ARE indeed split up according to
language.

> Keeping all languages in same files is not the way to go. It will become
> PITA once some languages start lagging behind - restructuring chapters, for
> example, while there is noone available to do it for some of the languages,
> would be a problem.

Some languages are already lagging behind (e.g. NL) and it might look like an
amputation when chapters are restructured, but problematic sections can easily
be excluded, or moved to a `old, but not obsolete' part of the file; If one
takes the effort of restructuring a chapter, I suppose he or she should also
take the effort to add some explanatory comments for other contributors?

But of course these are my feelings and discussion is a a good way to combine
visions and improve the ultimate result...

BTW: Mea Culpa about the Gimp thing, something to do with the LaTeX mores of:
{\sc Gimp} where the last three letters are small capitals ({\sc gimp}, would
be even more consistent), which differ from
regular capitals. According to this philosophy I even prefer
<acronym>gimp</acronym> above GIMP. Likewise, when Axel or Roman explained me
about it, I prefer the possibility of systematising quotes:
<quote>Text</quote> instead of `text', "text", 'text' or other
permutations.

Greetings
-- 
Hans de Jonge
+31 (0)24 844 96 85	 +31 (0)62 20 57 101

`Perfect is the enemy of good'