[pulseaudio-discuss] Localisation of log messages

[David Henningsson]

A few of us had an IRC conversation about whether or not to localise 
PulseAudio's log messages.
The suggestion/outcome is to add localisation only if all of the 
following points are fulfilled:

  1) The message is of type "warning" or "error". (Debug and info levels 
are seldom exposed to end users.)

  2) The translator is likely to understand the sentence. (Otherwise 
we'll have a useless translation anyway.)

  3) It's at least remotely likely that someone will ever encounter it. 
(Otherwise we're just wasting translator's time.)

  4) The user is likely to be able to help himself, or at least be 
informed, after having read the message.

Example:

pa_log_warn(_("OK, so you are running PA in system mode. Please note 
that you most likely shouldn't be doing that.\n" (etc)

The above can remain localised.

pa_log_warn("Unable to set stop threshold: %s\n", pa_alsa_strerror(err));

The above should NOT be localised (fails both 2, 3, and 4.)

pa_log_info(_("Fresh high-resolution timers available! Bon appetit!"));

The above should be changed to NOT be localised. (fails at least 1. 
Maybe also 2 and 4.)


-- 
David Henningsson, Canonical Ltd.
http://launchpad.net/~diwic