Bug#235166: libmail-bulkmail-perl: Please switch to gettext-based debconf templates

Martin Quinson Martin Quinson <Martin.Quinson@tuxfamily.org>, 235166@bugs.debian.org
Thu, 26 Feb 2004 21:31:31 -0800


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Package: libmail-bulkmail-perl
Version: n/a
Severity: wishlist
Tags: patch l10n


Using the "new" gettext format for debconf templates helps for templates
translations. For instance, detecting outdated or untranslated strings 
becomes considerably easier. It also keeps track of who did which
translation.

The attached patch does the required modifications :
- debian/control modification for dependencies (see below)
- execute "debconf-gettextize debian/*templates*" 
- mark the right strings as translatable in the templates (see below)
- fix the style of the template (see below)

If you want to reproduce this by yourself instead of applying the
patch, you have to do:

- install po-debconf on your system
- go to the debian directory
- read man po-debconf..:-)
- run "debconf-gettextize *.templates"
- read the output
- change Build-Depends or Build-Depends-Indep (see below)
  They should list "debhelper (>= 4.1.16)" (debhelper depends upon 
  po-debconf) since you use debhelper. 
- update the templates file to mark as translatable only the fields
  which should (ie, not the one containing stuff which cannot be
  translated such as kernel module name, and neither the one not
  shown to the users)

For more details, see po-debconf documentation, especially "man 7
po-debconf"

Read this if you're concerned with backports :
--------------------------------------------

Please note that the suggested modifications will make your
package a little bit harder to backport to earlier Debian releases. If
this is a concern to you, you may try to adopt the method used by the
openssh package and detailed by Colin Watson in
http://lists.debian.org/debian-i18n/2003/debian-i18n-200307/msg00026.html

This patch does not includes this method as this would make it too
invasive, IMHO. So, preserving backportability is up to you...

The rest of the story :
---------------------
While I was working on the convertion to po-debconf, I noticed that the
templates of your package may be easily improved by applying the advices
contained at the following address:

http://people.debian.org/~bubulle/dtsg.txt

I would really appreciate if you could have a look at this, and apply
the advices it contains, such as improving long descriptions to make them
understandable even by the newbies users.

I fixed the blatant error consisting of mixing short description and long
one. But more improvements are possible. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to
criticize, I just want to get the template in a translatable state (ie, kind
of definitive).

Once the switch is achieved, and the style improvement are done, I 
guess that you will receive translations of your templates rather soon. You
may consider asking on the debian-i18n@lists.debian.org mailing list for
translations once you think that your templates are in a sort of final state
where they won't be modified in the near future.


Thanks for helping the translators, and thus your non english speaker
end-users. 

Bye, Mt.



-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux galadriel 2.4.22 #1 ven nov 21 16:02:19 CET 2003 i686
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.ISO-8859-1, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.ISO-8859-1


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	filename="/home/mquinson/src/diff-switch-libmail-bulkmail-perl"

diff -ruN libmail-bulkmail-perl-3.12.ori/debian/control libmail-bulkmail-perl-3.12/debian/control
--- libmail-bulkmail-perl-3.12.ori/debian/control	2004-02-26 21:23:39.000000000 -0800
+++ libmail-bulkmail-perl-3.12/debian/control	2004-02-26 21:27:12.000000000 -0800
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 Maintainer: Debian Perl Group <pkg-perl-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>
 Uploaders: Marc Brockschmidt <marc@dch-faq.de>, Joachim Breitner <nomeata@debian.org>
 Standards-Version: 3.6.1
-Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 4)
+Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 4.1.16)
 Build-Depends-Indep: perl (>= 5.6.0-16)
 
 Package: libmail-bulkmail-perl
diff -ruN libmail-bulkmail-perl-3.12.ori/debian/libmail-bulkmail-perl.templates libmail-bulkmail-perl-3.12/debian/libmail-bulkmail-perl.templates
--- libmail-bulkmail-perl-3.12.ori/debian/libmail-bulkmail-perl.templates	2004-02-26 21:23:39.000000000 -0800
+++ libmail-bulkmail-perl-3.12/debian/libmail-bulkmail-perl.templates	2004-02-26 21:27:22.000000000 -0800
@@ -1,7 +1,9 @@
 Template: libmail-bulkmail-perl/changes
 Type: note
-Description: In 3.09, the config file has changed incompatibly from that in 
- 2.05. (The old format was a Debian-specific patch.  Upstream chose a
- different format.)  Also there have been some architectural changes.
- See /usr/share/doc/libmail-bulkmail-perl/migration.guide.txt and the
- files in /usr/share/doc/libmail-bulkmail-perl/examples.
+_Description: Configuration file format changed!
+ In 3.09, the config file has changed incompatibly from that in 2.05. (The
+ old format was a Debian-specific patch.  Upstream chose a different
+ format.)  Also there have been some architectural changes.
+ .
+ See /usr/share/doc/libmail-bulkmail-perl/migration.guide.txt and the files
+ in /usr/share/doc/libmail-bulkmail-perl/examples.
diff -ruN libmail-bulkmail-perl-3.12.ori/debian/po/POTFILES.in libmail-bulkmail-perl-3.12/debian/po/POTFILES.in
--- libmail-bulkmail-perl-3.12.ori/debian/po/POTFILES.in	1969-12-31 16:00:00.000000000 -0800
+++ libmail-bulkmail-perl-3.12/debian/po/POTFILES.in	2004-02-26 21:27:22.000000000 -0800
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+[type: gettext/rfc822deb] libmail-bulkmail-perl.templates
diff -ruN libmail-bulkmail-perl-3.12.ori/debian/po/templates.pot libmail-bulkmail-perl-3.12/debian/po/templates.pot
--- libmail-bulkmail-perl-3.12.ori/debian/po/templates.pot	1969-12-31 16:00:00.000000000 -0800
+++ libmail-bulkmail-perl-3.12/debian/po/templates.pot	2004-02-26 21:27:22.000000000 -0800
@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+#
+#    Translators, if you are not familiar with the PO format, gettext
+#    documentation is worth reading, especially sections dedicated to
+#    this format, e.g. by running:
+#         info -n '(gettext)PO Files'
+#         info -n '(gettext)Header Entry'
+#
+#    Some information specific to po-debconf are available at
+#            /usr/share/doc/po-debconf/README-trans
+#         or http://www.debian.org/intl/l10n/po-debconf/README-trans
+#
+#    Developers do not need to manually edit POT or PO files.
+#
+#, fuzzy
+msgid ""
+msgstr ""
+"Project-Id-Version: PACKAGE VERSION\n"
+"Report-Msgid-Bugs-To: \n"
+"POT-Creation-Date: 2004-02-26 21:27-0800\n"
+"PO-Revision-Date: YEAR-MO-DA HO:MI+ZONE\n"
+"Last-Translator: FULL NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>\n"
+"Language-Team: LANGUAGE <LL@li.org>\n"
+"MIME-Version: 1.0\n"
+"Content-Type: text/plain; charset=CHARSET\n"
+"Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n"
+
+#. Type: note
+#. Description
+#: ../libmail-bulkmail-perl.templates:3
+msgid "Configuration file format changed!"
+msgstr ""
+
+#. Type: note
+#. Description
+#: ../libmail-bulkmail-perl.templates:3
+msgid ""
+"In 3.09, the config file has changed incompatibly from that in 2.05. (The "
+"old format was a Debian-specific patch.  Upstream chose a different "
+"format.)  Also there have been some architectural changes."
+msgstr ""
+
+#. Type: note
+#. Description
+#: ../libmail-bulkmail-perl.templates:3
+msgid ""
+"See /usr/share/doc/libmail-bulkmail-perl/migration.guide.txt and the files "
+"in /usr/share/doc/libmail-bulkmail-perl/examples."
+msgstr ""

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