Source string change request / Feature request

[Mark Haanen]

Op dinsdag 22-12-2009 om 23:02 uur [tijdzone +0100], schreef Christian
Stimming:
> Am Dienstag, 22. Dezember 2009 schrieb Mark Haanen:
> > One quick and one complex question.
> > 
> >      1. Would it be possible to change the source strings for lines 2275
> >         in src/gnome/druid-loan.c so that it's no longer a
> >         concatenation, but two separate strings ("Escrow Payment" /
> >         "Payment")? This would allow me to properly translate the first
> >         term into Dutch.
> 
> Sure. Does this concern only exactly this one string in druid-loan.c:2275?

Yes; all other occurrances of "escrow" are sentences, allowing proper
translation. Of course I cannot guarantee that I won't find more
examples of a similar nature with other terms/words.

> >      2. There are several options programmed into GnuCash which are
> >         heavily locale-dependent (Income Tax springs to mind). It would
> >         be nice to either describe this dependency within the strings of
> >         said options (allowing users to steer clear) or to be able to
> >         activate/deactivate these features by selecting additional
> >         locales from the Preferences dialog (while defaulting to the
> >         user's defined locale).
> 
> Which options do you have in mind? Taxes are the one big exception of all 
> localization attempts, and I would go as far as claiming there is almost no 
> point in translating the en_US tax explanations because they are useless 
> outside of the U.S. anyway. Online Banking is probably the only other 
> exception we have. Is there anything more? I don't have any easy solutions for 
> both, though, except that the documentation should say somewhere prominently 
> that those are only valid in the U.S. (or, in case of Online Banking, in a few 
> countries).

I've noticed several more. In the loan druid, the concepts of Escrow and
PMI, as wel as the "3/1 Year ARM" and similar interest rates, don't fit
within the Dutch context. On the other hand, a straight 3-month
EURIBOR-linked loan is sorely missing, as this is a rather common loan
type for small & medium businesses. I'll keep a lookout for more locale
dependencies.

On your proposed solution: I agree that a more prominent mention in the
docs would help, but I'd feel even more at ease if they just don't show
up when I've set nl_NL as my environment. Otherwise I'd still feel bad
if I left these options untranslated, while translating them might
induce expectations that won't be met.

By the way: scrap that thought on the preference dialog. I was thinking
about a NL person working in the US. However, the interplay between the
different tax codes (and the relevant tax treaties) would preclude any
meaningful functionality.

Regards,
Mark