1.4.1.1 Translator Comments (was Re: [xliff-tools] PO Representation Guide: The PO Header)

[Asgeir Frimannsson]

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 07:19, Rodolfo M. Raya wrote:
> Here are a few comments about the PO Representation Guide:
>
> 1.4.1.1. Translator Comments
>
>
>         Translators can add comments at translation time. Those comments
>         are useful while the translation is in course, but they are lost
>         when the POT file is updated and used to generate new PO files.

With GNU Gettext, translator comments are not lost when updating a PO file 
from a new POT file. Automatic comments and references are re-generated.

>         Comments added to the XLIFF file at conversion time may have the
>         "from" attribute set to "po-file", but there is no need to
>         restrict the  values of the "from" attribute. An example:
>         Heartsome's TM system stores translator comments in the
>         database; if after conversion I retrieve translations from my
>         own TM, I have my own comments back; my comments usually have
>         the "from" attribute set to "rmraya".
>
>         When writing comments back in the translated PO file, the origin
>         of the comment is lost, so it does not make sense to enforce an
>         origin.

But wouldn't it be useful for translators to know that a comment was extracted 
from the PO file, and not added by another translator in the XLIFF-based 
translation process? 

An important question is: Do we write comments back in the translated PO file? 
If so, how do we do this. A translation unit can have multiple <note> 
elements, but PO has no way of adding multiple comments. That's why I 
suggested from='po-file', and then only these comments are written back to 
the PO file. 

I guess a problem with this approach is that in XLIFF editors you cannot edit 
comments from others, e.g. an XLIFF editor would limit the 'from' attribute 
in my case to 'asgeirf'? Hence, translators would not be able to edit the PO 
extracted comments.

cheers,
asgeir