Implement translatable module names (with context)

use this one with "spaces"... something with my eclipse was wrong...

module names *can't* be translated. they have a specific name, in english, and that's how you find them on drupal.org. module names come from the .info file, so the only way to "translate" them would be to edit your .info files (which would only work for a single language, anyway). plus, you're never supposed to put dynamic strings inside t().

Not really. They are translateable! POTX and Extractor will include this .info strings into the PO files. OK, today the build/modules page does not translated... but maybe in D6 or D7. Additional the name is often used in settings menu tree and therefore it is translated. All Modules i have installed have been displayed in German after applying the patch!?

I think module names are one of those special cases where you are allowed to pass a dynamic string through t().

I asked about this on the translator's list. Someone replied with:

http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/translations/2007-June/000388.html

This is a very clear explaination why module names aren't translated on the admin/build/modules page, and therefore, why they shouldn't be translated here in update_status, either.

Hah, and now Gabor replies that they could be:
http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/translations/2007-June/000390.html

;) Ugh, now I'm not sure what I think...

I'm still leaning towards won't fix, but in fairness, I guess this does need review. ;)

Ok, let's try to make it specific so that we all understand the same thing. In /admin/build/modules we currently see. for example:

Node
User
Taxonomy
......
Pathauto
Taxonomy Access Control Lite
ACL
LoginToboggan
Xstatistics

- No other name (or filename) appears on that page, still the admin must be able to say which module is which.
- At the same time, some of the modules have entries in the admin menu, same as or similar to these names, which currently may be translated (or not). Making these entries here translatable would make some of them appear with that same translation (if it exists).
- It has been suggested by Gabor in the mailing list that the module's original filename could be added.

So, what should the admin see in /admin/build/modules to be able to work?

One of my points on the mailing was that you already need to pair "Taxonomy Access Control Lite" to a path where that module is and a filename (directory name) for the module. The logical groupings on the module page might also coincide with the physical grouping to folders (eg with i18n modules) or might not (eg with various taxonomy related modules). You might have your modules in the drupal modules folder, in sites/all, in one of your sites folders and so on.

My suggestion on the mailing list was:

To help this situation, we can put a 'title="'. t('Original module name: %name, location: %path', array('%name' => $name, '%path' => $path)) . '"' onto the module list items for example (and let the module names be translated).

This is turning into a discussion about the translatability of module names in core, so let's move this issue there. I'm not going to commit hass's patch to 5.x update_status.module, since D5 core doesn't handle this well and I agree with CogRusty that without better support in core for this, it would be too confusing to allow translation of module names. So, let's talk about this in the context of how D6's admin UI should work. Besides, update_status will be part of the D6 admin UI soon enough, so this feature request might as well live in the core issue queue, anyway. ;)

(p.s. Gabor, is this a "language system" feature, since it's about translatability, or is that Component reserved for the specific localization/translation subsystem itself not t() call sites, and this should really be "base system" since it's about the admin/build/modules page?)

language system and locale.module are very close. I would classify broader language stuff, like node languages, node translation, page language detection and so on to the language system, and "strictly" locale related stuff to the locale module. The broader "language system" was introduced as more modules are now involved in languages, system module, node module, the installer all have code for it.

Either way, I monitor an aggregate of the two categories for new issues and comments coming along so it is fine in either category :)

Moving this feature request to 7.x

I am still on the position that module names are translated elsewhere (like menu items in the administration menu), so not translating them here is awkward.

It's perfectly impossible to translate module names until we add a proper context to those (see #334283: Add msgctxt-type context to t()). There are simply too short.

New status ;)

(we're not waiting for more info, we're blocked on another issue)

I do not accept translation of menu items as examples for module name translations..
The menu item title is the explanation of the page it refers to. Like when you click on the 'Views' menu item you will open an admin interface where you can manage views. But the module name has nothing to do with it. Menu items are translated, but the module name does not have to be. That is not the module name what is displayed in the menu..
Other example 'Book' menu item is translated. Why do we have to translate the module name ('Books'), which is not even the same as the menu item?

+ Module names are essential parts of the d.o infrastructure (now), like you can filter issues by module name. It will not work with translated module names..

module names are translated elsewhere

that's not true. Hungarian translations do not translate module names.. If it is obvious that the text is about the module name, then that string is not translated. But if the text is about the module functionality, like: "view is a list of content", then it will be of course translated, because the text is not about the module name..

nobody translates "Drupal", I do not see why other project names should be translated..

Names are unique identifiers which should never be translated for the clear and simple reason that they are unique. In a lot of cases they are not words with a meaning, but are just names. If Pasqualle and Gábor came to the Netherlands we wouldn't translate their names to Pascal and Kaboor (or whatever the Dutch translation of Gábor would be) either. Nobody would know who they are anymore.

In Drupal, if we are talking about modules, their names should appear in their original form. Whether we translate menu items like 'Taxonomy' or 'Blocks' is another issue, since in these cases the links could refer to Taxonomy as a practice and to the actual blocks being configured or to the configuration pages of modules. In the first case the items should be translated, in the second they shouldn't.

Conclusion: it has all to do with meaning. As long as a piece of text refers to a module, we should not translate it.

A "book" or "books" can be translated to "Buch" or "Bücher" in German... - "book" is not a German word, but "Buch" is. Germans understand "Buch" much easier than "book". Aside when I first sat in my English lessons... ~20 years (?) back... I assure you the teachers tried to rename us into English spoken names equivalent to our German names... I cannot really remember how my name was written in her name book, but it was something like "Aleksander" or so... And if I write my last name correctly - you cannot type it... or do you have an "ß" on your keyboard? "ß" has been rewritten to "ss" for the English people only. I could say I don't care about the English guys... but you may understand that If I write my name in Japanese, Arabic, Hrebrew, etc. you might get some more fun with your keyboard... and than explain me how you are able to understand it.

Some intellectual game... Drupal's base language is Hebrew... and the developer rule is not to translate the module name "ספר" (EN: book). So - do you understand anything??? I'm not... as I don't speek Hebrew myself and I'm sure non-Hebrew people will have no fun with such a Drupal. Now transfer this to English...

@hass: I do not really understand, what is your point? Are you worried that users will not understand the module name? There is the module description, next to it. I am worried that users won't be able to find the module if we translate it's name, and module name translations will just confuse people..
If someone would ask me about CCK or Views with naming it in Hungarian, I would have no clue what he is talking about. These are the 2 most used modules, and there are 4000 others.
You don't like when your name is translated, then why would you like to translate module names?

For the exotic alphabet. As I know in every language, it is possible to mix Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic letters with Latin letters.

Hebrew:

Arabic:

Russian:

I can't read Hebrew and Arabic, but I would bet that Drupal is Drupal in every language, just the alphabet is different..

I think you are mixing different things up. First of all "%version" is a placeholder - they cannot be translated for technical reasons as the code search for the placeholder to replace it with a numeric value. Additional I haven't said we should translate product names. But a string like "MySQL Migration Toolkit" should also be translated to "MySQL Migrationstoolkit" (or similar) in German. If we are nit picking we could also say this should never be translated, but I believe this is wrong and this is what I'm talking about. There are good reasons to translate strings and you cannot say it's every time wrong to translate a module name.

If the product is called "MySQL Migration Toolkit", then it should not be translated. If it is a toolkit without a proper name, then it may be translated.

Basic rule: names are never translated in modern day society. Like I said, names don't necessarily have a meaning. They are mere identifiers.

Nope, sorry. We don't need only English in this world. In my village someone felt so kind to rename "Müllabfuhr" into "Waste Management"... it's painted on the big waste cars... And than the "waste managers" feel better because they are now managers... how strange is this? We don't *need* this... and older German people have never learned English in school or don't speak it fluent or very bad. And the "Waste Management" has been turned back after ~2 months and some public discussions... We don't need more anglicism that most people don't understand!

I know about another German neologism in my village... One of this ambulance cars are now named - "First responder" - In past it was "Erste Hilfe" or if we translate this word by word - "First aid". What do you think is a job of a "First responder"? We don't know here... and other humans in my village don't understand this, too. It could be someone who give me first answers... maybe... we don't know who created this neologism... but it exists now. But they feel happy... they are now internationalized... or better to say - they tried it.

You may not understand the following article, but http://www.rp-online.de/public/article/wirtschaft/news/382094/Deutsche-v... (many Dutch people understand German very well and you?). It describes how Germans do *NOT* understand English advertising slogans. They made an study that showed that only ~30% of the Germans understand the English slogans correctly... a few examples: "Life by Gorgeous" was understood as "Stay with Georg" or "Fly EuroShuttle!" was translated as "Shake the Euro to fly" or the "Euro shake flight"... or the German Beck's beer ad "Welcome to the Beck's Experience" was translated to "Beck's experiment" (only 18% translated it correctly). It's funny, but it shows what came out of anglicism. I'm pretty sure you find the same issues in your country.

I really hope you understand that things need to be translated sometimes nevertheless English speaking people try to make rules for us or companies tries to be international with a global language. Don't get me wrong... I'm not an enemy of English, but something goes really wonky with anglicism.

@hass: do you really translate module names like: CCK, Token, Pathauto, CAPTCHA, Imagecache, SpamSpan, FCKeditor, IMCE, Lightbox2, Tagadelic, Wysiwyg API, Acquia Marina, ACL, Diff, Node clone, FeedAPI, Taxonomy Breadcrumb, String Overrides, TAPIr, Auto locale import, Chaos tool suite?

many module names do not mean anything even in English, I don't get it why would it be much more meaningful when it is translated.

If you say yes, then we need a switch (variable) for this..

@hass: Each module has a filename and a descriptive name. The untranslated filenames of the modules are absolutely necessary for an admin to be able to tell which module needs to be uploaded/upgraded/uninstalled etc, without having to decipher how some guy decided to translate a module name while another guy has translated another module name in the same or similar way.

Of course the descriptive module names could be translatable. However the technical limitations of the gettext system must be taken into account: In gettext, if a string is translatable and a translation has been imported, all occurrences of that string anywhere in the site will be translated too. To avoid confusion, the module filenames must appear in the module admin pages, and they must be untranslatable, in case some of them happen to match strings of an imported translation.

Way back when Drupal still translated module names, the Hungarian team did translate them. It was confusing I admit. I'd love to see how hass would translate the module names listed in #24 to German.

#24: only Pathauto => Autopfad, Taxonomy Breadcrumb => Taxonomie-Pfadnavigation, String Overrides => Zeichenketten-Übersteuerung, the rest is not translatable. :-)

Exactly. And now somebody at Drupal.de tells a novice to use Autopfad to solve his problems. That novice visits drupal.org, cannot find that particular module _anywhere_. He logs into IRC, asks around there and everybody tells him that module doesn't exist.

I _really_ don't see the problem here. We as a human race don't translate names for the clear and simple reason (last time I repeat this) that they are UNIQUE indentifiers. Why should we Drupallers differ from that rule?

@cog.rusty: Yes, that's ok, translate the descriptive module names only, but show the technical name together on modules page like today. This allows admins to understand what they need to update, but I think it's wrong to write in help texts and so on about an untranslated name. Also keep in mind that there are modules not named like their folder (for e.g. folder "nodewords" is named "Meta Tags")

The arguments against this are compelling. Even the core i18n maintainer admits that when module names used to be translatable it was confusing. Module names are unique identifiers, not meaningful text. The descriptive text both can and should be translatable so that non-English speakers (and English speakers, for that matter) know WTF "CCK" or "CAPTCHA" means. ;) I see no reason to keep debating this.

The problem is that at least 2 issues are waiting for this decision.
#368201: Module name translated
#368197: Module name extracted

So I would like to convince hass, or I don't know, vote on it this issue, so it could be a final won't fix..

I would even accept a switch (a variable or language setting) in D7. So, if German translators decided to translate module names, then they could display it as translated on pages: admin/build/modules, admin/help.. Note: it will not be possible to switch, as full sentence with a module name in it will not use this variable.. We do not want to change sentences like:

probably languages with exotic alphabet would like to use their own letters like: Друпал
which is not a translation, just a alphabet change, but that needs t() on the string..

Then this isn't postponed waiting for more information from someone. It's being actively debated. I still think it's won't fix, but I'll bow out now and let y'all argue about it.

-Derek

p.s. Oh, how I wish more people were contributing to Death to "+1 subscribe" comments: Help needed so I could unsubscribe myself from this thread...

I definitely do not want to translate module names to Hungarian and it is a problem for me when there is a t() call on module name (as for example "Views" is a general English word and it is translated to Hungarian), but I would accept if some languages want to use t() on it..

@Xano: The module names are unique identifiers if it come to the directory name, but not in the UI. We may talk about different things. We should show the unique identifier module name *PLUS* the .info module name translated - if it makes sense or is required.

Damn, d.o eated half of my text... what is this!???

I try to write again what I wrote and has been lost after submit and eated by the d.o DB servers... find a project named "Content translation" via "d.o/project/Content translation". You will not see anything. This shows us that "Content translation" is not a unique identifier like the module directory name. The modules directory name is currently not visible in the UI and therefore you are lost if you try to find "Meta Tags" (UI name that should be translatable) anywhere as it's in "nodewords" (unique identifier)

@hass #36: (Since I know you're going to submit a duplicate issue about it if I don't tell you): #379470: Change in the issue description is discarded after clicking on the attach button -- blocked on the comment_upload maintainers. <sarcasm>Add some more punctuation there, I'm sure it'll help.</sarcasm> ;)

Also, restoring this to the appropriate status. So long as you people are arguing about this, it's not postponed on anyone. It's active. Please leave it at that status (or better yet, move it back to "won't fix" and be done).

find a project named "Content translation" via "d.o/project/Content translation". You will not see anything

http://drupal.org/node/206666 there is no project named "Content translation" on d.o so I do not understand this example..

http://drupal.org/project/issues?projects=Meta+tags
as you can see I used "Meta tags" (not nodewords) to list all open issues for Meta tags.. Project name is a unique identifier, but it does not really matter in this case..

@hass: do you want a language setting to be able to show module names as translated?

"Content translation" is the .info file "name" of core's translation.module.

@hass
Translated module names would be very confusing imho, it would be even harder to support someone in a different language (german is my native language, btw). Also, each project/module has a Name on d.o. If the modules admin page tells you that you need to install the "Ansichten" module because of a dependency, you would _never_ find it on d.o, neither would anyone in #drupal-support know what you are talking about (Ok, for that one maybe, but not for all the others). Unless d.o is completely translated in every language (and that will never happen), I don't think it's a good idea to do that. The same is true for the other way around, if you would download a module with a specific name from d.o (where the english name is displayed) and then go to /admin/build/modules you would have a hard time to find it, if it has another/translated name there.

As it was pointed out, many modules have names that don't even make sense in english, it's just a name.

Also, most "typical" users probably don't care about the project/something URL, but they would remember the name of the module.

http://drupal.org/project/issues?projects=Meta+tags
as you can see I used "Meta tags" (not nodewords) to list all open issues for Meta tags.. Project name is a unique identifier, but it does not really matter in this case..

I repeat it again - "nodewords" is the unique key of the module. If you are new to Drupal and I install your box, but you see the module name "Meta tags" in your UI - you will never ever expect that "nodewords" is the name of this module. If you have CCK you go to "sites/all/modules/cck" and you find CCK, but if you try to go to a directory named "sites/all/modules/meta tags" you will never ever find it as it do not exists!

@keith.smith: I know this very well... :-), but above are some arguments about a non-existent "unique key" and that Admins are able use the module named listed on the modules page to find these modules in their installation via comparing the module name with the directories in sites/all/modules - and this is simply wrong! This is why we are able to translate module names.

That people are not able to find translated module names may be an issue of the "English only" d.o.

Hass, nobody ever said that module names were unique identifiers used for technical purposes. Humans use names as identifiers. Don't make assumptions.

@Berdir: Please not again the "Views" vesus "Ansichten" discussion... a "view" is a "Ansicht" in German - nothing wrong! If we don't translate views we also need to stop translating "Books" to "Bücher" and so on and so on. The German core translation is full of translated module names and this was far before I became one of the drivers of the German core translation... See the dictionary http://code.google.com/p/drupal-de/wiki/UebersetzungCoreModulNamen at google code how we translated module names for ages, please.

I don't want to discuss about Views/Ansichten, I just used that as an example, because it's the first translated menu item/name that came to my mind. I could have made the same example with every module that exists. As you said, a "view" is a "Ansicht" in german.

However, "View" (note that the first character) is the name of the module and a different thing.

> That people are not able to find translated module names may be an issue of the "English only" d.o.
That is correct. However, because I really doubt that will ever change, I think it's not a good idea to translate names

@Bedir: I was very very very often told... I do not use d.o because I do not speak English well enough. This is why I'm only on Drupalcenter.de... and I have asked so often why are you not searching first on d.o for you problem? and got the same feedback (they do not understand English). We mainly translate Drupal for these guys - not for the people who speak English very well :-)

Personally, I believe that someone computer-literate enough to administer a site should expect to see "Microsoft Windows" untranslated and "Open a window" translated.

So lets translate module, theme and profile names using t() with context option, because "Друпал" (Drupal with Cyrillic letters) is a good argument why project name should be a translatable string..

I used modules name in order to list them in help section, but I tried to translate them with no success. So I did some changes to the code, that I don't know if they are OK. I only use this feature in the help module, so I think there's no problem with drupal behaviour but I think it can be useful to other modules ... I saw how Drupal parse the file .info so I thought I could change and add a new string definition. For example:

Then, I changed some functions to show the proper name for language.

I hope this help someone. I don't know if it is useful, but I think it is always a good idea to share the knowledge.

What do you think?

we should just simply use something like

the .info file is a wrong place for storing translations..

Module names shoud not translated or display module name under the translated name.

Module names cannot be translated and it seems like 8,132,725 people have argued in length against hass' insane proposal.

Module names cannot be translated, because they are unique.

Module names cannot be translated, because they are a product name.

Module names cannot be translated, because module names may appear in sentences of other modules.

Module names cannot be translated, because they are totally different from menu link titles, which describe the page you may visit, like everywhere else on the net.

Module names cannot be transliterated, because their names are unique.

Thanks for exploring all possible options.

Please stop here, or I'll translate your nickname. ;)

Module names cannot be transliterated, because their names are unique.

Drupal Russian
Drupal Hebrew
Drupal Arabic

The name is still unique. As I know there is not other way to use a different alphabet than making a translation..

"Drupal", the name, is unique, and is the proper name.

The first search result for your Russian example gets it right

- in the domain name

- in the title

- as well as in the text:

Drupal Россия (Drupal Russia)

I'm not even sure whether transliterated names are covered by trademark law (though I guess so, because it's a phonetic variant).

However, to transliterate a name, you don't need t(), because transliteration happens automated.

Just like this is automated:

Now compare that to what you see on http://drupal.org/project/drupal - is it the same? Or is it http://www.dropal.com maybe?

So what is unique, what's not?

transliteration happens automated

I do not know how transliteration can be done in Drupal without using t()..

just for note: I did not know how to write Drupal in Hebrew or Arabic, so I downloaded the translations and tried to find the proper transliteration in it. If Drupal is transliterated then I guess module names needs to be also..

Transliteration is not required. Proof: http://www.drupal.ru/node/32965 - they properly use "Drupal" in Russian text.

Drupal is the name and it is the only, unique representation.

Likewise, no one would assume that Пасяуалле might mean you.

If that was you, then you wouldn't exist on drupal.org.

Hence, Пасяуалле is not Pasqualle.

Just because someone starts to type your name wrong doesn't mean that it's the proper way to type it, neither the proper way to refer to it.

Module names cannot be translated, because they are unique.

Yes, internal development project names are unique (project, directory, filenames). Compared with Microsoft Office 2007 Add-ins: CalendarPrintAssistant.exe (in all languages the same), see http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=...

Module names cannot be translated, because they are a product name.

Drupal is the product, but "book" and "views" are features of Drupal and not products. They cannot work without Drupal. Compare with Microsoft Office Add-in's:

Examples: (English -> German)
Calendar Printing Assistant for Outlook 2007 -> "Kalenderdruck-Assistent für Outlook 2007"
2007 Microsoft Office Add-in: Microsoft Save as PDF -> Add-In für 2007 Microsoft Office: "Speichern unter – PDF"

Reference links:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/downloads/CD102017981033.aspx
http://office.microsoft.com/de-de/downloads/CD102017981031.aspx

Open Office is also fully translated... if we need open source software to compare. Always keep in mind that many Germans do NOT understand the word "Book" and if we write "Book" in the menu tree they do not understand the Drupal system. There is nothing insane if users do not understand their Drupal product and the features inside. We need to solve this!

Module names cannot be translated, because module names may appear in sentences of other modules.

Microsoft and other vendors do it and they have understood their users. I believe there are many more usability guys under contract than here! We should not make new rules for ignorance. Going with the market is better and cannot be wrong as it's what users expect. Do we work for general public or only for developers that understand English and their language well?

Module names cannot be translated, because they are totally different from menu link titles, which describe the page you may visit, like everywhere else on the net.

This is confusing... Now you say - product names can translated in the menu tree? If I understood you correctly you are fine with translating "Book" to "Buch" in the menu tree. Please clarify...

I'm not sure why you change the topic. Transliteration is not the same like translation and nobody asked for transliteration of unique usernames (like internal module names). The question was only about translating the UI name to make Drupal features more user friendly.

I agree with not translating module names. A while back, the French translation team decided not to translate module names in help text either. As soon as you do, people start to get confused. This problem has been described at length here already, and is by itself compelling enough to declare a won't fix.

@Damien:

1. Are you using a French Linux or Windows as your main platform?
2. What have the vendors done in the OS and/or Office Software you are using - if the UI is not English?
3. Have the French team translated "Books" in the menu tree? In German we do this and others, too.

It couldn't be wrong to show internal module names in a column or below a module name on the module page to make it easy to find the module by the raw module name, but If you don't speak English as French guy and you looking on the module page - what should "Book" mean? It's like "et$dab%!&dzf"... It's may sounds extreme, but the world is not only English nevertheless some think it is and some think everyone need to speak and understand English.

I remember a report where a German television team tried to talk English with Chinese airplane pilots. Believe me - it was a ***wonder*** that this airplanes haven't had a crash while landing or a collision while parking the airplane on the Frankfurt airport. The Chinese mostly have only one or no person in their cockpit speaking a very basic and broken English. If you have heard the *panic* voice from the air traffic control guys you may understand what is going wrong there... I also know a few pilots and they confirmed that it's high stress for them to fly in the Chinese airspace. There are daily - critical situations where airplanes are short before crashes and it's a wonder that we haven't seen more yet.

By not translating Drupal module names - nobody dies, but this is only an example that shows that others may not speak/understand any English word.

Aside - product have often different names in different languages...

please download the Hebrew and Arabic translation and in modules-system.po search for word Drupal.
I do not want to translate module names, and Hungarian does not need transliteration, but if some language needs that, then we should support it.

sun: if you transliterate a word then it is the same. Друпал דרופל دروبال is Drupal, even google knows that. And I am sure if you would correctly transliterate Pasqualle then it would be the same also. But common person names are not transliterated, names have language equivalents.

as I know Drupal 7 already supports modules name translation.

Drupal more like a product name.
modules is some additional function.

I know MS office/products are not translate their products name, but they translated plugins name.

we can support modules name translation but for Usability reason, we need to display a untranslate name on modules page.

Some people here are missing the point that names are unique. They are not part of a context, they are mere identifiers. There is a difference between "Book" and "book", as the former is a name and the latter a reference to Book(.module) book or something people can read. Menu items may very well be called "Book", but only if the title's a reference to the module. If not, then the word should be translated.

The only valid reason so far is the one that supports not translating module names because they are unique. The arguments raised for translating them are (mostly) based on what has been done in translations and other software projects already. We shouldn't blindly follow others, but make our own decisions.

This issue is not marked won't fix for nothing. Please only (and only!) post follow-ups if you have valid arguments for either standpoint. NO "I'd like" or "but they...".

as I know Drupal 7 already supports modules name translation.

wow, actually you are right!

Let's fix this, because this is so broken now. I need context for these strings, as I do not want to translate module names to Hungarian..

ok, first patch

- I think the sort does not work, because:
http://us.php.net/manual/en/function.strcasecmp.php#24729
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/832709/natural-sorting-algorithm-in-p...

- The update status page is missing from the patch.
- There still must be t($theme->info['name']) somewhere, as Garland is re-inserted into locales_source table without context.

Where is the option that disables this by default and allows to enable it?

Without that, this is not going to fly.

If the given context is not translated, then it is not translated..

I don't understand the necessity of translating module names. You drive away the coders credits. You make it more difficult for the man in middle, working for clients who need to run the site in a certain language. You confuse people talking with experts. You confuse yourself.

I think it is generally wrong to translate them and I translate them every time back for my own usage....

You are a user who may understand English. Read #61, please. I'm not confusing myself.

@hass hehe... reading all my points and picking out only the one you don't like... very cool ... :)

I confuse myself always when I install the German translation. Imagine using admin menu, where everything is in a different place when you translated module names. When views is translated into German with "Ansichten" it is not on the bottom anymore.. it sucks and confuses... When I talk with customers over the phone having the German version installed on customers side, while I'm using the English version, I need to guide them totally different to their points. This is a show stopper of the German translation all the time.

We need a living translation and not a 1:1 translation.

Only having a translation for the end user makes no sens, We have to take certain aspects into account. Don't tell us anymore that there are product names which are translated all over the world. Coca Cola remains Coca Cola, even in Germany. Sometimes I hope people wouldn't take this so personal, I know that Hass commits much modules, but there are not only coders around here. There are themers, users, quality leads, mangers, and many many others, and that's what makes Drupal so big. It's not easy to see it from a different point of view. Getting a wider angel on the point... :)

Not really... None of your points in #69 is correct, but my iphone is a bit limiting me if it comes to big texts. I will comment later with a real keyboard :-)

The main problem is that if we decide to translate modules (and I am still very much against that) is that we have no proper documentation that also uses those names, neither does drupal.org use them. +1 confusion.

as hass said it before drupal.org is English. all we need is an option to see the English name of the module also. no confusion, it can be solved easily.

but this is still broken in D7, so this must be fixed. meaning: module names are translated on some places and not translated on some other places..

Alright, if there is a bug, then we need to re-classify this issue accordingly and move a potential feature of translating module names into a new, separate feature request for D8, 9, or 10.

@Xano: this is why I said that we should show the internal project name on the modules page :-)

@snicers: You pleased for more... so on:

I don't understand the necessity of translating module names.

You may not have customers that speak only German... or missed the people asking on drupalcenter.de for help explicitly for the reason they do not speak English (and they tell us).

You drive away the coders credits.

NO - really not! Credits are inside the module readme, code and on the project home. Users using a Drupal don't care about any credit - they are users - NON-technical users. They only need a working system and if it doesn't work they complain to you "sh** IT services", "sh** IT system", "website is broken", etc. They have no idea about the product... trust me - I know them. Is there anything in English for the German abbreviation DAU (dümmster anzunehmender User)?

You make it more difficult for the man in middle, working for clients who need to run the site in a certain language.

Well, you need to learn the translations if you support multilingual environments or translate them in mind back or install i18n and click the German language switcher link if they are one phone.

You confuse people talking with experts.

I'm only guessing, but it may be possible that the expert is only a newbie expert :-). I've administered Japanese systems... and I cannot read/speak this... I have had a personal translator girl next to me - I asked what item means "foo" and what "bar" and than I installed a network driver on WinXP without any understanding of the language... this took 10 times longer than normal... If Drupal's main language would be Chinese I would be fully ***unable*** to understand the Chinese letters that means "views" - nevertheless the product name is kept as is and I'm in respect to Chinese that they are able to remember so many "letters". I hope this makes things more clear...

I think it is generally wrong to translate them and I translate them every time back for my own usage....

This is really only your personal way that may work for you, but not for the people who do not speak English. My personal experience is your need not to expect that Japanese, Chinese or Arabic people speak English, please. I do understand that we "cannot believe" that others don't speak English in this world - but it's not their second language. I do not like to guess wt may be the ignorance of the US that they sometimes think (or we think they do) are alone in the world. Only think about east Germany... Russian was their second language in school. I would wish I could speak Russian myself...

Cross posted... but "what" is the bug in D7? On modules page it is not translated in D6 and on all other pages it's translatable. I haven't checked D7 about this, but this is the old fashioned way for now until we are able to translate everything.

@hass: screenshot in #65

Ah, great - I've only used D7 in English yet. This issue seems to be more or less obsolete as it has been implemented as requested :-). Only usability wise we should add the internal project name somewhere to allow admins to find it on disk.

Oh boy. I just looked into my D7 modules page...

That makes zero sense. And I think this issue contains countless of reasons why it doesn't make sense.

Modules are managed by people who know and _have to know_ the proper English names of modules.

All people above have been very quiet or haven't answered to only one of my examples above from Microsoft and other vendors!?

So - it looks more likely that my point of view is valid. I do not expect that the changed modules page we currently have been done by fault. Everything need to be translatable - if we really translate is a different issue.

+1 for the rollback in D7.

@hass, people are just tired of arguing with you, from what I read.

At this point, despite hass's constant arguing to the contrary, there aren't enough compelling reasons for this change. This will lead to confusion for developers and users working in different languages. I agree with the 'module names are unique identifiers' line of argument above.

I wonder why I only see English speaking people arguing against here... or at least people who have configured their Drupal profiles with Languages spoken: English only... Could you all please configure your Drupal accounts with more details or comment what languages you are using/speaking yourself, please? I'm confused how English only people can argue here.

- English, Dutch and German. Want me to take a stab at French and Latin as well? Oh, I am a Drupal translator as well.
- Yes, I'm tired of arguing. There are too many people here not posting concrete arguments. Pointing fingers and saying you want what they have doesn't make them right, let alone make you right.
- If nobody argues with you, it doesn't make you right either.
- Microsoft changes some names, but not all. If we translate "External links filter" to "Externe-linkfilter", it makes sense in Dutch. However, names like "Drupal", "Views", or "Pathauto" cannot properly be translated without people raising eyebrows or choking in their lunches.
- Module names are unique identifiers. I'm not calling you "haas" either, because that might be the Dutch translation of your nickname.
- We don't have enough documentation and a website that support translatable module names. People will get confused if they hear different names for the same modules.

Once again: We need concrete reasons for doing something in Drupal; either translate or keep module names. Please keep your mouse pointer as far away from the issue controls until we have enough reasons to go either direction.

- Microsoft changes some names, but not all. If we translate "External links filter" to "Externe-linkfilter", it makes sense in Dutch. However, names like "Drupal", "Views", or "Pathauto" cannot properly be translated without people raising eyebrows or choking in their lunches

But this is what I've said... we *should be able* to translate. I have not said we *must* translate... If modules names are not translatable keep them as they are (copy over the English string to the translation), but provide the *ability* to translate.

I could also say - I do not care about non English speaking users for the reason that this is not my personal issue, but I only think I've really seen enough people telling us on drupalcenter.de that they do not visit d.o for the reason they do not speak English. We can keep the barrier high and keep this users out (ignoring them) or do something for the usability. We only loose potential new users telling their friends Drupal has bad UX and so on... better go with Wordpress.

Are you able to understand a Chinese letter if Views would be written in Chinese if primary development platform would be Chinese... and the core Chinese developers argue that this is a unique product name?

Feel free to close the case if you think UX is not important. Someone else will open a new one or this one for sure later...

You are completely missing the point. We are talking about translating names, not entire web pages. German people who cannot read English don't visit d.o because they don't undestand the entire site. That is a bigger issue than people who don't understand names, identifiers. Please stick to the point. This is one of the reasons hardly anybody even tries to fix this issue; you keep throwing in arguments that have nothing to do with this topic at all.

Gábor today said Címkefelhő instead of Tagedelic. I do not need a better reason..
Module and Theme names needs to have t() with context. There needs to be a way to display the original project names (+English names) on the admin pages..

or missed the people asking on drupalcenter.de for help explicitly for the reason they do not speak English (and they tell us).

If you would have been more active on drupalcenter or in IRC in the last months you would have noticed that the main confusion comes from translated module names and not from being not able to understand english!

Only think about east Germany... Russian was their second language in school. I would wish I could speak Russian myself...

Bad example. I had russian in school several years but I really don't want to have customers telling me they have a problem with "просмотр" or something like this.

I fully agree with sun! "Modules are managed by people who know and _have to know_ the proper English names of modules."

What would you tell a client if he wants to display nodes in a different style? "Laden Sie Ansichten herunter"? I guess not. You would call him to "download views". And if he do so he would really be confused if the name changes to "Ansichten".

So please do not translate module and theme names. You wouldn't want to translate your family name, wouldn't you?

@Pasqualle: Yes, contexts are a perfect and appropiate solution.

@stBorchert:

"Laden Sie Ansichten herunter"

Thank you very much for providing such a bad translatable strings example - it saved me the same to seach in the PO file. It perfectly shows how bad and context sensitive Views translatable strings are! I said this very often and done so many reviews of Views, but there are still many many suboptimal strings inside Views. We need to fully REVIEW views from ground up to make it easly translatable. Your example source string need to be something like "Download the Views module" or "Download the 'Views' module". Then we are able to write Das Ansichten-Modul muss heruntergeladen werden. We also do not write "Sie" or "Du" in German translations! As a side note - what you are complaining about regaring Views is the result of the bad basis of translatable strings only - nothing else! Have you ever tried to help me translating Views to German?

What would we do if Drupal's basic language would be Russion t("просмотр") and the .info file would have lines like name = просмотр or Chinese or any other language like Spanish? I'd like to know what would happen if the English countries are so arrogant to force others to English - what could we expect from Chinese and Russians if they go their own way and sh** on English people...

You are all wellcome in #632858: UX: Full translatable string review for fixing Views.

Then we are able to write Das Ansichten-Modul muss heruntergeladen werden.

You can't be serious?! Go and find the module "Ansichten" at drupal.org/Modules. Or tell your customer to find and download it.

We also do not write "Sie" or "Du" in German translations!

That was not the point of my example (that was no translatable string but something one may say to a customer).

what you are complaining about regaring Views is the result of the bad basis of translatable strings only

No. Its about translating Views and other module/theme names.

Have you ever tried to help me translating Views to German?

Yes, I did. That was before our "talk" at cologne earlier this year. After that I stopped helping you going in this direction.
And as I noticed you didn't change your mind since then so this is a won't fix for me. Module and Theme names must not be translated.

yes, hass keeps missing the point.

You can't be serious?! Go and find the module "Ansichten" at drupal.org/Modules. Or tell your customer to find and download it.

d.o is English, not German. I said we should add the project name to the modules page. This one is unique. The title of a module is not unique and can be completly different from the modules internal name. Without the internal module name you may not able to find a project as there is no must that the .info file use the same name like the project on the module page.

kkaefer also said Views (Ansichten) and View (Ansicht) is a correct translation for the menu items (you may remember this from cologne).

Nobody said anything yet to my Russian/Chinese example as base string... I guess the ice becomes thin on this way, but it shows pretty good how Russian/Chinese people must feal in Drupal.

@sun: Why are you continously highjacking my feature request? This case is for implementing or better allow *optional* module name translation. It was not for roll back anything that haven't implemented here. In this case is no patch to roll this feature in nor back. Maybe you'd like to search somewhere else what commit have implemented the change you'd like to roll back. Adding a context to the module names may have the same result like the rollback.

Reverting issue properties to a feature request.

We'll remove translations of module/theme names in #632896: Rollback translation of module names

Laden Sie Ansichten herunter

This should of course be Laden Sie Views herunter.

@Hass: please keep your mouth shut if you cannot do anything but criticise the current situation and not suggest anything that can actually solve this issue. You keep wanting to push this into D7 at all cost, even though we keep saying that is not possible because drupal.org and other documentation do not support this. That doesn't even have to do with if we want this or not, but with the chances of actually making such a change work.

Basically, what you want requires a change at drupal.org and in major documentation articles *before* we can change Drupal itself, otherwise people will get lost.

Not that this changes the way I think about this issue, but I must admit I still don't quite understand why you have such an urge to see this changed. As a German you will have no difficulties with reading module names, although you may not understand them, but that is the case with a lot of foreign names (unique identifiers).

no change to d.o is necessary, d.o is English only and will be English only. Module name translation is a valid feature request, which will be solved sooner or later..

It is a valid feature, but if people using Drupal see translated module names, but cannot find modules with those names on drupal.org, we create a bigger mess than we have now.

but if they can see non-translated names in Drupal when they want to....

I know some said the names on modules page are unique identifiers, but I think this is simply wrong. I'm free to create a module name mymodule_foo and give it a name Foo in the .info file and another different name on project home like "Fork of Foo" or просмотр or anything else I wish to use. There is no guaranty that you are able to find the project by the name shown on the modules page!

The *only* unique identifier may be the modules internal project name in CVS and this also only for the reason that we have naming rules in the CVS. This unique identifier is also not really unique, but allows you to find the project for sure (http://drupal.org/project/[unique identifier]). If I'd like to clutter a Views module I can also create inside mymodule_foo a views.module and destroy sites having Views installed. So on - I hope it's now clear that there is no real unique identifier today.

I only changed the topic here to add the context - for only one reason - we already have translatable module names in D7 (however this came in), but now we only need to add a context for Module names on the modules page t() and we have this feature request fixed. A "missing" context can be seen as task or bug.

Afterwards we can create rules what module names are allowed to translate and what not.

I am also free to call you John or Edgar, but most people will not expect that I am talking about hass. This is not about technical limitations, but about UX limitations.

We can stop worrying now. #632896: Rollback translation of module names is in.

Now I'd really like to unsubscribe here. :-/

As a consequence, this is won't fix.

I gave you a valid reasons why some languages needs this, I do not see any rejections to my request, so this is active, and need to be fixed someday..