[Koha-devel] Question: tmpl_process3 placeholder strings

[Ambrose Li]

Hi,

Right now, with tmpl_process3.pl, there are still some strings
that are extracted out of context because an <INPUT> tag is in
the middle of the sentence, making it produce strings that are
not translatable. I think I have "almost" got it right so that
tmpl_process3 can recognize that some INPUT tags should not
break the strings.

However, before I finish and commit the code, I need to think
about a question.  I wonder what kind of placeholders I should
use for these INPUT tags (radio and text):

- Right now, TMPL_VAR is represented by %s. This makes sense.

- Right now, A elements are represented by <A1>, <A2>, etc.  Some
  time after I committed it, I felt that this is perhaps a mistake
  because the original strings may have <A1> etc. (though they
  should not), and I now feel that such things are best represented
  by some sort of c-format code, perhaps one that is abused or made
  up.

Do you think it makes more sense that, for the INPUT tags, we

  1. Reuse some c format to represent INPUT (e.g., %i for INPUT)?
     This makes the strings shorter, but doesn't make sense.

  2. Invent some c format to represent the different kinds of INPUT
     (eg., %R for radio, %T for test)
     This also makes the strings shorter, make more sense I think,
     but perhaps a bit weird.

  3. Invent some new tags to represent the INPUT elements
     (e.g., <INPUT1>, or <RADIO1> or <TEXT1> etc)

If we invent some c format to represent the INPUT tags, then I think
the meanings of the 1$, 2$ etc modifiers would change.

What do you think should be used to represent <INPUT type=radio>
and <INPUT type=text> ?

If you think we should use pseudo-c-format codes, do you think the
<A> tags should also be changed to use such codes instead of <A1>,
<A2>, etc? or are <A1>, <A2>, etc. easier to read?

Note: These placeholders are only used by the tmpl_process3.pl
translation script. Translators will see them in the strings to
translate if they decide to use this translation script, but they
will not appear in the translated files.

I hope I have asked my question coherently.

Thanks,
-- 
Ambrose LI Cheuk-Wing  <a.c.li at ieee.org>

http://ada.dhs.org/~acli/