Please do not create strings untranslatable with Transifex

In [ https://gitweb.torproject.org/torbutton.git/blob/HEAD:/src/chrome/locale/en/aboutTor.dtd#l26] aboutTor.dtd one can currently find:

<!-- Note to translators: the following 18 entities are used to construct a
   - sentence (either the SP or DDG entities are used, but not both at the
   - same time).   In English, the sentence reads:
   -    Search securely with Startpage.
   - or:
   -    Search securely with DuckDuckGo.
   - The sentence contains two embedded links for "securely" and
   - the search engine ("Startpage" or "DuckDuckGo").
  -->

That's really, really not the way to do it. Isn't there an equivalent to sprintf for Firefox extensions?

The following strings can't be translated properly with Transifex:

<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.privacy.beforeLink.label "Search ">
<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.privacy.beforeLink.label "Search ">
<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.search.beforeLink.label "with ">
<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.search.beforeLink.label "with ">

The ending space is invisible in any graphical translator (e.g. Transifex, our recommended tool for translators). :(

added MikePerry201403R component::torbrowserbutton owner::mikeperry priority::medium resolution::fixed status::closed type::defect labels

Trac:
Cc: N/A to mcs, brade

Assembling this string dynamically should be possible, but I think that means we will have to invalidate existing translations and convert these to properties instead of DTD elements. It may also require Javascript running in about:tor to do this, though we may be able to assemble the strings in Torbutton and inject them.

If we end up needing to inject them anyway, I suppose an extreme hack might be to create a hidden XUL element with the DTDs in it, extract the elements they are contained in, and reassemble them in JS, and then inject that into about:tor. That will require us to invalidate less strings (perhaps only the ones with spaces), but it might be a little crazy and messy.

You should invalidate them anyway:

torbutton$ git grep beforeLink.label -- src/chrome/locale | grep -vE '(with|Search)'
src/chrome/locale/de/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.privacy.beforeLink.label "Suche">
src/chrome/locale/de/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.privacy.beforeLink.label "Suche">
src/chrome/locale/de/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.search.beforeLink.label "mit">
src/chrome/locale/de/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.search.beforeLink.label "mit">
src/chrome/locale/es/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.privacy.beforeLink.label "Busque">
src/chrome/locale/es/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.privacy.beforeLink.label "Busque">
src/chrome/locale/es/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.search.beforeLink.label "con">
src/chrome/locale/es/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.search.beforeLink.label "con">
src/chrome/locale/fa/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.privacy.beforeLink.label "جستجو">
src/chrome/locale/fa/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.privacy.beforeLink.label "جستجو">
src/chrome/locale/fa/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.search.beforeLink.label "">
src/chrome/locale/fa/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.search.beforeLink.label "">
src/chrome/locale/fr/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.privacy.beforeLink.label "Rechercher">
src/chrome/locale/fr/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.privacy.beforeLink.label "Rechercher">
src/chrome/locale/fr/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.search.beforeLink.label "avec">
src/chrome/locale/fr/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.search.beforeLink.label "avec">
src/chrome/locale/it/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.privacy.beforeLink.label "Cerca">
src/chrome/locale/it/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.privacy.beforeLink.label "Cerca">
src/chrome/locale/it/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.search.beforeLink.label "con">
src/chrome/locale/it/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.search.beforeLink.label "con">
src/chrome/locale/ja/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.privacy.beforeLink.label "検索">
src/chrome/locale/ja/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.privacy.beforeLink.label "検索">
src/chrome/locale/ja/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.search.beforeLink.label "一緒に">
src/chrome/locale/ja/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.search.beforeLink.label "一緒に">
src/chrome/locale/ko/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.privacy.beforeLink.label "">
src/chrome/locale/ko/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.privacy.beforeLink.label "">
src/chrome/locale/ko/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.search.beforeLink.label "">
src/chrome/locale/ko/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.search.beforeLink.label "">
src/chrome/locale/nl/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.privacy.beforeLink.label "Zoeken">
src/chrome/locale/nl/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.privacy.beforeLink.label "Zoeken">
src/chrome/locale/nl/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.search.beforeLink.label "met">
src/chrome/locale/nl/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.search.beforeLink.label "met">
src/chrome/locale/pl/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.privacy.beforeLink.label "Szukaj">
src/chrome/locale/pl/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.privacy.beforeLink.label "Szukaj">
src/chrome/locale/pl/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.search.beforeLink.label "z">
src/chrome/locale/pl/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.search.beforeLink.label "z">
src/chrome/locale/pt/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.privacy.beforeLink.label "Procurar">
src/chrome/locale/pt/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.privacy.beforeLink.label "Procurar">
src/chrome/locale/pt/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.search.beforeLink.label "com">
src/chrome/locale/pt/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.search.beforeLink.label "com">
src/chrome/locale/ru/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.privacy.beforeLink.label "Поиск">
src/chrome/locale/ru/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.privacy.beforeLink.label "Поиск">
src/chrome/locale/vi/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.privacy.beforeLink.label "">
src/chrome/locale/vi/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.privacy.beforeLink.label "">
src/chrome/locale/vi/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.search.beforeLink.label "">
src/chrome/locale/vi/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.search.beforeLink.label "">
src/chrome/locale/zh-CN/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.privacy.beforeLink.label "搜索">
src/chrome/locale/zh-CN/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.privacy.beforeLink.label "搜索">
src/chrome/locale/zh-CN/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchSP.search.beforeLink.label "引擎">
src/chrome/locale/zh-CN/aboutTor.dtd:<!ENTITY aboutTor.searchDDG.search.beforeLink.label "引擎">

They are all missing the spaces.

We did not realize/think about the fact that Transifex would make it impossible to see the spaces. We followed the kind of scheme Mozilla uses for similar text within the Firefox about box, e.g.,

http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-esr24/source/browser/locales/en-US/chrome/browser/aboutDialog.dtd#20

(they also use trailing spaces).

The easiest fix is to move the spaces into aboutTor.xhtml and remove them from the localization process. It is possible for some locale that a space between the pieces would not be desirable, but I don't know of a real world example. The advantage of this solution is that we can probably keep all of the existing translated strings.

Another approach would be to use more of the sprintf approach as lunar suggested. We could have a property string something like this:

aboutTor.searchSP.privacy=Search securely with Start Page.

The strings for %1

$S and$

S would come from localizable properties as well, e.g.,

aboutTor.searchSP.privacy.link=https://startpage.com/eng/protect-privacy.html aboutTor.searchSP.search.link=https://startpage.com/

This would still give translators control over the order of items within the final string, etc. with the downside that the existing entities would need to be thrown out. Also, translators would have to preserve the HTML tags and balance quoting within the one string, which is very fragile.

We also noticed that in some of the translations have " " in aboutTor.dtd instead of " " or " ". This causes ;nbsp& to show up on the Arabic about:tor page.

This is one of the affected entities: aboutTor.searchSP.privacy.afterLink.label

The following localizations have the problem: ar de es fa fr it ja nl pl pt ru zh-CN

Lunar, Mike: Which of the approaches described in [comment:4 mcs] should we use? Do either of you have a better idea?

A full string with placeholder is how to do it right in my view.

Kathy and I committed a fix for this on our bug10398 branch, here:

https://gitweb.torproject.org/user/brade/torbutton.git/commit/54c8721acf3c52855405c669ebfbdbeead69806a

We did our best to preserve the existing translated strings, converting them to the new scheme and adding the missing spaces.

Mike -- you will also need to update the trans_tools/import-translations.sh script once the new aboutTor.properties file has been added to the translation repo.

Trac:
Status: new to needs_review

Also discussed in #10561 (closed)

Feel free to tag any tickets that are ready for review+merge with MikePerry2014MMR, so I can easily find them while merging things for a given release.

Trac:
Keywords: N/A deleted, MikePerry201403R added

Merged. There were some conflicts, but I think I resolved them. I hope the translations still make sense..

Trac:
Resolution: N/A to fixed
Status: needs_review to closed

closed

mentioned in issue #10561 (closed)

mentioned in issue #15836 (moved)

mentioned in issue tpo/applications/tor-browser#15836 (closed)