Re: Why emacs have not native language menu

[Hadron]

Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr> writes:

> On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 16:19:14 +0200, Hadron <hadronquark@googlemail.com> wrote:
>>Pascal Bourguignon <pjb@informatimago.com> writes:
>>>> No. That is NOT what emacs is. eLisp is the programming
>>>> language. Emacs is an infrastructure which supports multiple
>>>> applications programmed in elisp. They can be localised.
>>>
>>> Look, if you asked to localize microemacs or nano, I'd say, no
>>> problem go ahead.  But emacs is lisp.
>>
>> We are talking the command names interfaces and help texts - not the
>> function names. e.g you dont see "find-file-at-point" in the
>> menu. No. You find "Open File" or similar.
>
> But then you have to write the manual for this localized menu,
> and all sorts of problems creep up.  For example it is _very_
> easy to explain to an English-speaking person that `M-x find-file
> RET path RET' is the same as `menu: File | Open ...', and the
> English-speaking person will quickly get used to the term
> `find-file'.  If you describe in an ISO 8859-7 Greek manual that
> the following are equivalent:
>
>     M-x find-file RET διαδρομή RET
>     μενού: Αρχείο | Άνοιγμα ...
>
> which are the localized versions, then it's not as easy to
> remember that the `random' name `find-file' maps easily to the
> Greek text for "Open..." :-(
>
> While I agree that localization *is* useful, it's also my
> understanding that it is not a particularly easy task, nor an
> effort that can always create the same mental `mappings' between
> menu entries, help text, tooltips, keyboard sequences, etc.
>

No one suggested it was trivial. But to discount it out of course just
because emacs "is eLisp" is a tad silly IMO.

Jesus, half the Emacs manual is hard enough to understand in English! :)