Fwd: [libreoffice-l10n] Strings with placeholders

[sophi]

Hi all,

I'm forwarding the request from Mihail (which I support :). He posted on 
our l10n list, but I'd like to draw your attention on it.
Thanks a lot in advance for your consideration.

In case it's not possible to avoid using those placeholders, please add 
comments for translators, preferably in the source string description 
(where the KeyID is located), or otherwise in the source file at the 
location of the string.

Kind regards
Sophie

-------- Message transféré --------
Sujet : [libreoffice-l10n] Strings with placeholders
Date : Fri, 17 Jan 2025 13:57:42 +0200
De : Mihail Balabanov <m.balabanov at gmail.com>
Pour : LibreOffice-l10n <l10n at global.libreoffice.org>

Hello,

I apologize for not knowing whom to address this to, so I'm posting it here.

Recently, I've noticed an increase in new strings using placeholders like
%1 to construct sentences. This approach is quite unfriendly to
localization. For example, we have strings like:

Edit %1 [1]
Update %1
Delete %1
While this may seem like a clever way to save work, it actually poses
several issues for translators:

- It is often impossible to translate the containing phrase correctly
without knowing what exactly %x stands for. For example, the outer phrase
may need to agree in number, gender, or other grammatical attributes with
all possible fill-in phrases.

- In many languages, the fill-in phrases themselves must also be translated
in a certain way to fit in. In languages with cases, the %1 above should be
in the appropriate case. In languages that do not use English
capitalization, the fill-in phrases should begin with a lowercase letter,
etc.

Constructing phrases using placeholders should be avoided if possible. When
it is absolutely necessary, the container phrase should be provided
together with the possible fill-in phrases, or at least there should be a
comment directing the translator to their location. The fill-in phrases
should also be labeled as such and not used for anything else.

[1]
https://translations.documentfoundation.org/translate/libo_ui-25-2/swmessages/bg/?checksum=cd786056e4c248be

Cheers,
Mihail

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