Garlic patch (r40364), cant be applied, just for review

[ideasman42, 2011-09-20 03:35:04]

Checked the entire patch and have some general comments,
BUT - I could'nt get garlic working, on selecting a language - it would just
print for eg:
  Could not change locale to zh_CN nor zh_CN.UTF-8
tried building with both cmake/scons, same issue.


So without testing heres feedback from reading over the patch.

- Some verbose checks should be made into macros, there are macros defined
locally in C files, but should be generic ones in headers IMHO.

- re: python translations, it would be nice to have something less intrusive....
for example, any value given to text="...." could be assumed to be translated
unless a property in the layout is set

layout.use_trasnlation = False
layout.operator("...", text="This text isnt translated!")
layout.use_trasnlation = True

or... an argument.

layout.operator("...", text="This text isnt translated!", translate=False)

This way we wouldn't need every custom text to call _() and our scripts can
remain unchanged.

Function calls in python are much more expensive then in C, measured the overall
slowdown and its only a few % overall - but depends totally on how many buttons
are visible ofcourse.

since the rna functions are accessing high level I think its ok if they
translate by default too, but dont have a strong opinion on this, just a slight
preference for speed & less kludgy code.

On the other hand using gettext standard method in py gives some consistancy and
means translation is explicit.


Other comments inline...

http://codereview.appspot.com/5073041/diff/1/source/blender/blenfont/BLF_api.h
File source/blender/blenfont/BLF_api.h (right):

http://codereview.appspot.com/5073041/diff/1/source/blender/blenfont/BLF_api....
source/blender/blenfont/BLF_api.h:45: const char* BLF_gettext(const char
*msgid);
Realize BLF was supposed to handle translations from the start but IMHO it would
fit better if we have gettext split out from BLF_api.h, so text rendering & text
translations are not mixed.

What about BLF_lang.h / BLF_api_lang.h? - then we can have translation macros
and functions there.

http://codereview.appspot.com/5073041/diff/1/source/blender/editors/space_vie...
File source/blender/editors/space_view3d/view3d_header.c (right):

http://codereview.appspot.com/5073041/diff/1/source/blender/editors/space_vie...
source/blender/editors/space_view3d/view3d_header.c:473: #define TIP_(msgid)
(((U.transopts&USER_DOTRANSLATE) &&
(U.transopts&USER_TR_TOOLTIPS))?BLF_gettext(msgid):(msgid))
noticed a few defines like this, could we have some generic macros for
translation besides _N and _?

http://codereview.appspot.com/5073041/diff/1/source/blender/editors/transform...
File source/blender/editors/transform/transform_orientations.c (right):

http://codereview.appspot.com/5073041/diff/1/source/blender/editors/transform...
source/blender/editors/transform/transform_orientations.c:419:
if((U.transopts&USER_DOTRANSLATE) && (U.transopts&USER_TR_IFACE)) {
Re: (U.transopts&USER_DOTRANSLATE) && (U.transopts&USER_TR_IFACE)

Noticed this in a few places IMHO these should be made into a macro.

http://codereview.appspot.com/5073041/diff/1/source/blender/python/generic/bl...
File source/blender/python/generic/blf_py_api.c (right):

http://codereview.appspot.com/5073041/diff/1/source/blender/python/generic/bl...
source/blender/python/generic/blf_py_api.c:373: #ifdef INTERNATIONAL
committed change r40377. so this passes through the value if no translation is
done, will speed up drawing when no translation happens.

[nazgul, 2011-09-20 07:58:28]

Hi,

About verbose checks: For areas where UI_interface.h is available i've replaced
them with UI_translate_{tooltips|iface} and UI_translate_do_(tooltip|iface).
Could be macroses, but it'll be quite large macroses..

About gettext in Py scripts. I also thought about such kind of changes. But
unfortunately, they can't work well. Benefit of having this _() not in just only
having translated string as it's result, but also in automated gathering all
string needed to be translated. That's what update_pot.py does. For RNA
structures i've wrote operator which goes through structures and collecting
names, descriptions, enum titles and so. But even this operator isn't really
nice -- updating messages template and merging it into translation files can
easily fail when description changes. In comparsion, if it were _() and N_() in
the code msgmerge will check that messages used to belong to the same file/line
and suggested unchanged translation which is more useful (for example, for case
of recent tooltip changes from Bastien).

Also, i've splitted translation stuff into BLF_translation.