[Gimp-docs] Structural changes - gettext?

[Joao S. O. Bueno]

On Monday 09 June 2008, Marco Ciampa wrote:
> > But, in fact, there are more drawbacks in using gettext and .po's
> > than just having a master language. The major  of them seens to
> > be the need of an in order,  paragraph by paragraph translation
> > that might not always be the best possible translation - and
> > simply take too much freedom away from the translators.
>
> This drawback does not exist (IMHO) since a gettext string could
> fit easily more paragraphs at a time. If you go and look at the
> manual structure, for the largest part of it there _is_ a strict
> correspondence between the english parargraps (or grouped
> paragraphs) and the other languages sections.

Several paragraphs - like grouped paragraphs- ina  single .po string 
would indeed have no drawbacks in my opinion.

A one paragraph <-> one string, on the other hand is what I would not 
like to see - as the transaçtor would have to stick to an almost 
literal translation of sentence by sentence. With paragaph groups, 
hoever, there is room for a more natural text, conveing the same 
information. (And yet, I do think most times the translation will be 
done paragraph by paragraph - however the few parts where it will 
feel more natural to rephrase some contents are where very important,  
IMHO)

	js
	-><-