We've just landed bug 642176[1], "Integrate Workspaces extension into the browser" into our devtools project branch[2][3]. We're hoping to merge back into mozilla-central sometime in the next week or so to target Firefox 6. Axel rightly pointed out that the name "Workspace" may not translate well into other languages, citing German as one of the potentially difficult locales.
What is the "Workspace" feature? It's a simple text editor for writing and running bits of JavaScript code. It's a prototyping tool. It's a debugging tool. It's a something to use for experimentation.
The name "Workspace" came from the Smalltalk-80 programming environment[4]. I've blogged about it recently.[5][6]
At the risk of opening up a big bikeshed naming discussion, I ask you, is this a good name for the feature? Can you think of another name that would localize better?
Next week, we'll take a look at the responses and choose the best, or ship with Workspace as it is now and leave this discussion as a list of possible candidates for translation to other locales as needed.
I think the term "workspace" cannot be translated to all languages in a meaningful way. I think what we usually do in this kind of situation is add localization notes explaining the rationale behind the name and telling localizers that it's OK if they pick a word more suitable for describing the feature in their language.
> We've just landed bug 642176[1], "Integrate Workspaces extension into > the browser" into our devtools project branch[2][3]. We're hoping to > merge back into mozilla-central sometime in the next week or so to > target Firefox 6. Axel rightly pointed out that the name "Workspace" > may not translate well into other languages, citing German as one of > the potentially difficult locales.
> What is the "Workspace" feature? It's a simple text editor for writing > and running bits of JavaScript code. It's a prototyping tool. It's a > debugging tool. It's a something to use for experimentation.
> The name "Workspace" came from the Smalltalk-80 programming > environment[4]. I've blogged about it recently.[5][6]
> At the risk of opening up a big bikeshed naming discussion, I ask you, > is this a good name for the feature? Can you think of another name > that would localize better?
> Next week, we'll take a look at the responses and choose the best, or > ship with Workspace as it is now and leave this discussion as a list > of possible candidates for translation to other locales as needed.
> I think the term "workspace" cannot be translated to all languages in a > meaningful way.
IMHO, it's even too unspecific in meaning to be really useful to English-speaking users.
Robert Kaiser
-- Note that any statements of mine - no matter how passionate - are never meant to be offensive but very often as food for thought or possible arguments that we as a community needs answers to. And most of the time, I even appreciate irony and fun! :)
I don't think you really have to adapt this metaphor to non-English speakers. There may also be one or more languages where certain metaphor won't work well, but that doesn't mean you can't use it in all the other languages.
IMO, it would be quite OK to simply add a huge L10N note explaining what Workspace is and how to see it in action. Localizers could then choose the appropriate terms for their locale, even if those terms would have little in common with the en-US metaphor.
> We've just landed bug 642176[1], "Integrate Workspaces extension into > the browser" into our devtools project branch[2][3]. We're hoping to > merge back into mozilla-central sometime in the next week or so to > target Firefox 6. Axel rightly pointed out that the name "Workspace" > may not translate well into other languages, citing German as one of > the potentially difficult locales.
> What is the "Workspace" feature? It's a simple text editor for writing > and running bits of JavaScript code. It's a prototyping tool. It's a > debugging tool. It's a something to use for experimentation.
> The name "Workspace" came from the Smalltalk-80 programming > environment[4]. I've blogged about it recently.[5][6]
> At the risk of opening up a big bikeshed naming discussion, I ask you, > is this a good name for the feature? Can you think of another name > that would localize better?
> Next week, we'll take a look at the responses and choose the best, or > ship with Workspace as it is now and leave this discussion as a list > of possible candidates for translation to other locales as needed.
> I don't think you really have to adapt this metaphor to non-English > speakers. There may also be one or more languages where certain metaphor > won't work well, but that doesn't mean you can't use it in all the other > languages.
> IMO, it would be quite OK to simply add a huge L10N note explaining what > Workspace is and how to see it in action. Localizers could then choose > the appropriate terms for their locale, even if those terms would have > little in common with the en-US metaphor.
The problem with this approach (which works fine in other cases) is that I presume "Workspace" may end being a label in a button, so the localization should not be too much longer. And "Workspace" is a fairly short word for localization. If en-US uses "Workspace" naturally in the UI and a good number of other languages have problem localizing it without getting too long, we may have weird UIs in several languages.
"JS Scrapbook" is slightly longer and may help a bit with localization. In es-ES it could be translated to "Recortes de JS", which has more or less the same length than en-US. Of course, this is just an example, for other languages "JS Scrapbook" may not work any better than "Workspace".
I think a more generic name like JS editor/notebook/notepad (or script x/y/z if don't want to tie it to a specific web scripting language) would be much easier to localize.
Glad you took the time to ask for l10n feedback this early!
On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 4:20 PM, Ricardo Palomares Martínez <
rpm_nave.NO...@lavabit.com> wrote: > El 26/04/11 21:43, Rimas Kudelis escribió: > > Hi Rob, and others,
> > I don't think you really have to adapt this metaphor to non-English > > speakers. There may also be one or more languages where certain metaphor > > won't work well, but that doesn't mean you can't use it in all the other > > languages.
> > IMO, it would be quite OK to simply add a huge L10N note explaining what > > Workspace is and how to see it in action. Localizers could then choose > > the appropriate terms for their locale, even if those terms would have > > little in common with the en-US metaphor.
> The problem with this approach (which works fine in other cases) is > that I presume "Workspace" may end being a label in a button, so the > localization should not be too much longer. And "Workspace" is a > fairly short word for localization. If en-US uses "Workspace" > naturally in the UI and a good number of other languages have problem > localizing it without getting too long, we may have weird UIs in > several languages.
> "JS Scrapbook" is slightly longer and may help a bit with > localization. In es-ES it could be translated to "Recortes de JS", > which has more or less the same length than en-US. Of course, this is > just an example, for other languages "JS Scrapbook" may not work any > better than "Workspace".
I agree with Ricardo: I can easily translate WorkSpace in my language, but it will be quite long for a label ("spazio di lavoro") and I'm not sure that people will understand what that command does. As Percy suggested "Notepad" or "Editor" would be easier to localize, but I'm not sure they describe the feature: to me it looks more like a test area.
> On 26.04.2011 23:20, Ricardo Palomares Martínez wrote: >> The problem with this approach (which works fine in other cases) is >> that I presume "Workspace" may end being a label in a button
> Why are you presuming this?
As flod says, you usually need a menu option to access the feature, and buttons are often used to provide quick access to common menu options (for example, in custom toolbars).
The real problem would be that the button is not added right now, but after some time, when the en-US term for the menu label has landed and been localized to (in some cases) long strings that won't fit into a button, whereas the en-US term will do.
> El 26/04/11 21:43, Rimas Kudelis escribió: >> Hi Rob, and others,
>> I don't think you really have to adapt this metaphor to non-English >> speakers. There may also be one or more languages where certain metaphor >> won't work well, but that doesn't mean you can't use it in all the other >> languages.
>> IMO, it would be quite OK to simply add a huge L10N note explaining what >> Workspace is and how to see it in action. Localizers could then choose >> the appropriate terms for their locale, even if those terms would have >> little in common with the en-US metaphor.
> The problem with this approach (which works fine in other cases) is > that I presume "Workspace" may end being a label in a button, so the > localization should not be too much longer. And "Workspace" is a > fairly short word for localization. If en-US uses "Workspace" > naturally in the UI and a good number of other languages have problem > localizing it without getting too long, we may have weird UIs in > several languages.
> "JS Scrapbook" is slightly longer and may help a bit with > localization. In es-ES it could be translated to "Recortes de JS", > which has more or less the same length than en-US. Of course, this is > just an example, for other languages "JS Scrapbook" may not work any > better than "Workspace".
The point I tried to make in paragraph two is that if you had enough knowledge what this thing named Workspace is, you could find the appropriate wording for your locale. You could use "Recortes de JS" or "Pikachu" or anything else that would make sense for your particular language. It wouldn't have to be a direct translation of the word "Workspace". Am I clear enough this time?
