[publican-list] Should verbatim tags be translated?

[Ruediger Landmann]

On 04/10/2010 07:54 AM, Jeff Fearn wrote:
> Maybe the position that verbatim tags aren't translatable is flat out wrong?
>    

I think the position is wrong, for the following reasons:

1. some applications might have localised output, as you've already 
demonstrated. This means that translatable content could easily appear 
in <screen> tags. It's also certainly possible that some command-line 
applications might have localised input as well, although I can't name 
any specific examples. Maybe someone else here can think of one?

2. examples of CLI usage are often (or even usually) presented in 
<screen> tags in documentation. These examples frequently include 
<replaceable> content, for example, 
<replaceable>path_to_iso_image</replaceable>. This kind of replaceable 
content is certainly translatable.

3. comments in code are translatable content; in fact, since the purpose 
of the comments is to explain what's happening in the code, then it's 
reasonable to translate those comments. Comments in a language that you 
can't read is no better than having no comments at all. Therefore, 
<programlisting>s could contain translatable content as well.

That said, these are probably the exception rather than the norm. I 
wonder whether pre-filling some msgstrs while updating PO files makes 
sense? For example, if no existing msgstr exists for the msgid of 
verbatim content in the PO file, Publican could pre-fill the msgstr with 
the content of the mgsid and tag it "fuzzy"? Obviously, even assuming 
that's possible, we would need input from translators to see if that's 
desirable...

Cheers

Rudi