Come together with the global Drupal community in Rotterdam, 28 Sept – 1 Oct 2026. Sessions, contribution, connection, and Early Bird savings until 8 June.I'm in the process of translating Commerce to italian, and I found the mix-matching of the Status and State words a little confusing.
There's even a string (http://localize.drupal.org/translate/languages/it/translate?sid=722869) that says: "Select the order state whose default status the order will be updated to." What?
If the two words are used for different meanings, please explain them better. I really think only one should be used. see: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=287984
Comments
Comment #1
aturetta commentedThere is also http://localize.drupal.org/translate/languages/it/translate?sid=722839
Comment #2
rszrama commentedHmm, for starters there's this FAQ: http://www.drupalcommerce.org/faq/order-states
Are you saying there are instances of t() where we aren't specifying if it's referring to the state or the status and you'd like us to put some context into the options array? I'm not sure that's actually necessary, as the state and status would always be translated the same.
Does the FAQ clear it up?
Comment #3
aturetta commentedNot much.
The problem is that state and status are already almost synonyms in English (http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=287984), in most other languages (Italian for sure) there is not a second word at all.
Please, get a couple of developers among your friends who don't know Commerce, make them read the two strings I posted on the issue and first comment, and ask them what they understand.
I think it would be much more sensible to use state / sub-state (or state / step) than to count on the audience to master the nuances in the meaning of state/status.
Comment #4
aturetta commentedReally, I understand that the two words are even officialized in the API (commerce_hook_), but the problem appearing with the translation is a real bug.
Status and State as single words are already translated in a wide number of projects including Drupal core, and I bet most languages will use the same word for the two, so the ambiguity cannot be solved during translation.
I really suggest the team should think of a proper solution. As I said previously, even in English the two words are often used for the same meaning, and I think any key word requiring an explanation is a poorly chosen one.
If a new phrase cannot be used this late in the process, at least please use a context around all uses of 'status' when referring to the sub-state of a order state (please notice it's not always used for this even in Commerce).
Comment #5
rszrama commentedYeah, we should definitely at least get contexts in these. These got missed in an earlier issue for providing translation context.
I'll definitely be passing your feedback on to Bojhan to get some user testing around the language we're using here. We won't change it in 1.x, as it's too late in the development cycle, but it could be changed in 2.x. Right now it's at least "familiar" to users of Ubercart, but we're not just trying to maintain the status quo. : )
Comment #6
Bojhan commentedI dont get what the difference is? Are we using two words for the same thing?
Additionally, that sentence is really horrible. That is more of a problem in this case than these two labels.
Comment #7
aturetta commentedLook at the FAQ referenced in #2.
The two words have practically the same meaning in English, in Commerce (and maybe UC too) state is the state of the order in the workflow, while status is the internal state of the component implementing the workflow state.
Comment #8
tr commentedThis definition and usage was carried over from Ubercart, where even in English the distinction between order state and order status has always been a bit of a problem for the reasons pointed out by the original poster. The FAQ doesn't really help that much. "Status Category" and "Status" are perhaps better terms for "State" and "Status" respectively, since this describes their relationship.
Comment #9
Bojhan commentedHaving spoken to TR about this, we are confusing perceived usability with very specific labels from actual usability that people have relating to a label. In this case we are using two labels Status to be broad, and State to be specific. I would approach this by removing the idea of State being the specific label and simply having everything called Status.
Comment #10
rfayI think this can't possibly work as currently named.
I do propose "Status group" as the replacement for "Order State".
Comment #11
rszrama commentedComment #12
rszrama commentedPostponing this as a task for Commerce 2.x.
Comment #13
rszrama commentedThis whole discussion is really supplanted by our implementation of a more robust workflow paradigm to manage order statuses in 2.x.