Access keys (οδηγίες μετάφρασης)

[Nikos Charonitakis]

Στις 11/Σεπ/2003, ημέρα Πέμπτη και ώρα 23:08, ο/η Αλέξανδρος Διαμαντίδης
έγραψε:
> * Nikos Charonitakis <frolix68 at yahoo.gr> [2003-09-10 16:38]:
> > Applications using a non-Roman writing system in conjunction with a
> > standard keyboard can have control labels prefixed with Roman characters
> > as access keys.
> 
> Τι εννοεί ακριβώς αυτό;

> can have control labels prefixed with Roman characters
oxi must have ...

se ena elliniko perivallon prepei o xristis na mantevi to aggliko
shortcut, sto file open ktl einai profanes se alla polyplithi menu oxi
kai toso.

opos kai na exei pantos o metafrastis exei tin dinatotita na valei ta
latinika shortcuts kai na katharisei grigora me auto ton ponokefalo...

Deite pos ginete auto stin teleutaia paragrafo tou minimatos pou
episinapto.

NikosX


         Από: 
Christian Rose
<menthos at menthos.com>
Απάντηση Σε: 
i18n-list at redhat.com
       Προς: 
i18n-list at redhat.com
       Θέμα: 
Re: Underline
character _
Ημερομηνία: 
17 Nov 2002
22:47:21 +0100

sön 2002-11-17 klockan 21.57 skrev Nikos Charonitakis:
> can someone explain the purpose of the underline character  _   used
> in the po files
> examples: _File  , pass_word
> I ask this because i want to place it to the right place in the 
> translated word...

It marks the shortcut character (or "access key", as it's called in the
human interface guidelines of GNOME). The character to the right of it
becomes the underlined shortcut key in the GUI; the shortcut that you
can usually use Alt+<shortcut key> to activate. In the "_File" example,
it's so that you can activate the "File" menu from the keyboard by
pressing Alt+F.

When you localize these shortcut keys, it's of course a bonus if you can
use the same as in the English original, but I think you shouldn't focus
on that. After all, it's probably only a minority that switches between
English and localized versions of the interface, so it's more important
to make the shortcuts suitable for those that often uses the localized
version. A good shortcut is easy to remember and should of course not
conflict with other shortcuts.

Some guidelines I typically follow when assigning shortcuts:

* Look if this label or menu is present in other environments localized
into your language and what shortcut character is used there. I.e. if
you don't know what shortcut character to use in your translation of
"_File", then look at GNOME in your language, KDE in your language,
Windows in your language, MacOS in your language, etc., and see what
shortcuts they use for this menu label.

* Use the first character of the word. The first character is easy to
spot and therefore usually also easy to remember. Example:

  msgid "_Edit"
  msgstr "_Redigera"

This is what I use in Swedish for this message. I could have used "e" as
the shortcut, but "R" is easier to remember in this case.

* Alternatively, use a rare character. If "x" is a very rare character
in your language and the translation of this particular message happens
to have it, go with that. It's probably easy to remember since it's an
"odd" character, and it is less likely to conflict with other shortcuts.
If this translation doesn't have any particularily rare characters, go
with the other rules above.

* If it's a sentence, use a character in the most important word. By
this I mean that if the original message is "The proxy server for your
machine", place the shortcut in "proxy" using one of the rules above,
since "proxy" is the word this message is all about. This helps
remembering the shortcut.

For languages that don't use latin glyphs in their script, it's a common
practice to place the original shortcut character in the message at the
end of the message inside (). Example:

  msgid "_File"
  msgstr "xxxxxx (_F)"

(where "xxxxxx" are non-latin glyphs).


Christian