lynx-dev International version up to 2.8.1rel.2

[Webmaster Jim]

I have completed patching gettext function calls into Lynx
2-8-1, up to the the release-2 version. The code is available on
ftp://sol.slcc.edu/pub/lynx/current/lynx2-8-1-rel2-intl.tar.gz

Tom Dickey has indicated he will assist merging this into the main
Lynx source tree. I will be away for a week starting Saturday, so any
comments you can make before then would help.

 ==
Prior bugs not fixed yet:
 ==

*) the LOCALE directory is hard-coded.  I haven't been able to figure
   a way to discover it and pass it through configure to the right place.
*) The makefile rules need review.  The top-level makefile.in doesn't
   match the rel2 version very well, although it compiles for me.
*) I'm using gettext() rather than _() since the latter gives a warning
   under BSD.  I don't consider this a bug, per se.
*) I have not touched the input message handling (i.e., Y/N).
*) Likewise, the help screens and usage() function are not gettext'd.

 ==
Current issues and bugs:
 ==

*) Earlier versions of this code compiled on NetBSD, Digital UNIX,
   Linux and Solaris.  Solaris installation is a bit different.
*) Adding the extra functions adds to compiler loads, and probably
   causes observed bugs on ULTRIX V4.3 and Digital UNIX V3.2.
*) I didn't use Tom's patched autoconf, so there are a couple of
   spurious configure messages.
*) I revised some logic that was buried in the LYMessages_en.h file for
   OS type and put it back in the source module.
*) I patched a lot of code by eye over the last 2 months, so some
   discrepancies surely remain between this code and the main tree.
*) Translations that are distributed by GNU will need hard copy release
   forms. The CSuite-derived catalog doesn't have this.

 ==
Treatment of LYMessages_en.h
 ==

I've set the size of this file to zero, and expect to eliminate it
shortly. I emptied it to find all messages that were stored as macros.
Messages have been moved back into the source code, and surrounded by
gettext() calls. Language catalogs will be collected to use this call
for translations. The included "fr.po" catalog is derived from CSuite
sources, and works fairly well already.

 ==
Code standards
 ==

I've used the calls to gettext for all messages except trace functions.
There are a large number of message techniques in the Lynx code. I would
like to see all future patches use gettext() around message strings to
make translations feasible. There may be a few messages I've missed
buried in the code somewhere...

I have left in the "#include <libintl.h>" in many modules. It should be
moved to a higher level.

In some places, I've changed "Ftp" to "FTP". Tweaking strings in minor
ways will cause translations to fail, so I will whine in the future
about cosmetic changes that break the catalogs. On the other hand,
anyone that transmutes constructs like this:

printf(gettext("<em>Whoof</em>"));

into

printf("<em>%s</em>", gettext("whoof"));

will help the cause immensely. The text "whoof" may appear in many
places, but only needs to be translated once. If it is surrounded by
different tags, extra translation lookups are forced.

For example, this one should be 2 messages, or 1, not 3:

#: src/HTFWriter.c:635 src/HTFWriter.c:648
msgid "This file cannot be displayed on this terminal."
msgstr ""

#: src/HTFWriter.c:646 src/HTFWriter.c:648 src/HTFWriter.c:659 
src/HTFWriter.c:661
msgid "%s  D)ownload, or C)ancel"
msgstr ""

#: src/HTFWriter.c:650 src/HTFWriter.c:663
msgid "This file cannot be displayed on this terminal:  D)ownload, or C)ancel"
msgstr ""

 ==
References:
 ==

http://www.flora.org/lynx-dev/html/month0898/msg00810.html
ABOUT-NLS (ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/ABOUT-NLS)


-- 
Marvin the Paranoid Android says:
Wretched isn't it?