How to fork a language pack for personal use?

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Mæstro
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How to fork a language pack for personal use?

Unread post by Mæstro » 2020-12-16, 22:37

I use Pale Moon with the German language pack. It functions as intended, but I find it mildly annoying that English loanwords are sometimes used when native alternatives exist. This practise is rather common among Germans these days, and even endorsed by dictionaries, but I prefer´personally to keep my English and my German separate. I would like to modify the language pack for my personal use so that, for example, the English loanword Tab is replaced by the native alternative Reiter (as Linux Mint uses in its own UI). I am however unsure of how to do this; I have not worked with XPI before, and opening the file in a text editor only showed me that it is not a simple XML file that I could easily change to my liking. How would I make the changes I wish?
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Re: How to fork a language pack for personal use?

Unread post by Isengrim » 2020-12-16, 22:41

XPI is an archive file; you should be able to open it with 7zip or an equivalent program.
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adesh
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Re: How to fork a language pack for personal use?

Unread post by adesh » 2020-12-17, 04:16

If you think native translations are better and will be preferred by most people, you can contribute your translation so language pack is updated for everyone. See viewtopic.php?p=203724#p203724

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Re: How to fork a language pack for personal use?

Unread post by Moonchild » 2020-12-17, 08:05

There is however a known split in German language users -- one camp wants to use the most commonly used versions of words (including barbarisms) and others want to strictly use often literally translated terms instead. These two approaches are mutually exclusive; one is not objectively better than the other in many individual cases, and both have their pitfalls in terms of clarity of text.
We did have a "purist german" version for a while but I don't think that ever made it onto Crowdin.
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Re: How to fork a language pack for personal use?

Unread post by loxodont » 2020-12-19, 18:46

TheRealMaestro wrote:
2020-12-16, 22:37
... It functions as intended, but I find it mildly annoying that English loanwords are sometimes used when native alternatives exist. ...
Well, - speaking for the german language pack - translations on crowdin have always been open to suggestions, but though there have been some good, supporting people, who checked and re-checked the translations mainly for mistakes, I can only remember a few cases where suggestions for real changes have been made.
As a proofreader I welcome suggestions for "better" expressions with the focus on clear to understand functions and labels for the imaginary "average user". And the imaginary part here can be difficult sometimes: Open any german computer related website and you'll see it's full of terms like "Hardware, Software, Downloads, Browser,..." and these are just the basics, so there is IMHO quite a good average level of comprehension of all that, and people would rather find it odd to translate these terms: "Heim" for "Home"?

The "Tabs" example is a good one I think. I know the word "Reiter" very well, but rather from the past. Since "Tabs, tabbed browsing, multi tabs... " became the new thing, almost everyone seems to use "Tabs" for these elements - and if I used the word "Reiter" in present time verbal explanations some people were like "What,...is a "Reiter?" OK, this might be just my own experience, but from reading german tech news I would say that "Tabs" is a commonly known term now, even beginners should know it, other browsers use it, ... so in this case I wouldn't see any sense in changing "Tabs" in Pale Moon to "Reiter" (even if I could like it, personally). "Tabs" has become almost such a standard term as "browser, downloads,..." that I wouldn't change it for the sake of germanism.

Also I wouldn't recommend editing the official language pack. Only finding all those terms in all those files will be a load of work and will need more work with every official update. In my view, not worth the time , but hey ... ;)

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Re: How to fork a language pack for personal use?

Unread post by loxodont » 2020-12-19, 18:59

Moonchild wrote:
2020-12-17, 08:05
We did have a "purist german" version for a while but I don't think that ever made it onto Crowdin.
"Purist german" Really?...olo ... which Pale Moon version was that? :lol:

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Re: How to fork a language pack for personal use?

Unread post by Moonchild » 2020-12-19, 21:40

loxodont wrote:
2020-12-19, 18:59
which Pale Moon version was that? :lol:
I don't recall. It's been a long while.
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