Number to Words and licencing

[David Carlson]

On 11/4/2013 12:36 PM, John Ralls wrote:
> On Nov 4, 2013, at 9:58 AM, Thomas Troesch <ttroesch at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 3, 2013 at 8:54 PM, John Ralls <jralls at ceridwen.fremont.ca.us> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Anyway, the question isn't what's the right way to write out the amount in words for each language, the question is whether the Wikipedia article cited earlier in the thread is correct that checks are used only in the US, UK, and Canada. If that's so, we don't need to localize it at all.
>>
>>
>> I didn't get from the article that checks are only used in three places.   When I read from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheque
>>
>> "In Finland, banks stopped issuing personal cheques in about 1993 in favour of giro systems, which are now almost exclusively electronically initiated either via internet banking or payment machines located at banks and shopping malls" and "In most European countries, cheques are now rarely used, even for third party payments" and "About 70 billion cheques were written annually in the US by 2001"
>>
>> I get the sense that international check usage ranges from non-existent, to rare and being replaced by electronic banking systems, to very important.
> I get that check usage ranges from nonexistent to rare and being replaced by electronic banking systems except in the USA. Geert adds that checks are still used in France. I’ve asked on the user list for more input from other non-English locales.
>
>> It seems to me that the words for printing checks are not simply language dependent, but also depend on the political/banking system jurisdiction.  Gnucash currently has a check printing rule based on a Canadian requirement ( date format ), and it has nothing to do with the language being English or French.  I can see from the web that Mexico requires all spellouts to be in capital letters.  I have no idea if this rule applies to Costa Rica, or example.
>>
> [SNIP]
>> Sorry for my rambling.  My intuition tells me that something like the following may be suitable for now:
>> 1. Write plug-ins for number-to-check-words function for each language.
>> 2. Develop a testing program so the function can be tested independently.
>> 2. Load plug-ins based on locale setting if available.
>> 3. Default to current function if locale based plug-in is not available.
>>
>> This would require a collaboration between a translator and a programmer.  It may be awkward, but would at least provide an orderly way forward for people that are sufficiently motivated to get the function.  And hopefully locale is sufficient for mapping to the correct function.
> It would also require modifying the check-printing code to look for the plugin, load it, and use it. 
>
> Unless there’s significant demand for it, I think we have more pressing requirements.
>
> Regards,
> John Ralls
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> gnucash-devel mailing list
> gnucash-devel at gnucash.org
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
>

Why have we not heard from anyone  'Down Under' about this issue?  I
would expect that checks would still be used in places such as Australia
and New Zealand.  Also, what about South America or Asia?

David C
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 0xDC7C8BF3.asc
Type: application/pgp-keys
Size: 1729 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-devel/attachments/20131104/823a90e5/attachment.bin>