[PD] Pd without internationalization?

[Dan Wilcox]

> On Oct 12, 2021, at 11:15 AM, pd-list-request at lists.iem.at <mailto:pd-list-request at lists.iem.at> wrote:
> 
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2021 11:14:50 +0200
> From: "Peter P." <peterparker at fastmail.com <mailto:peterparker at fastmail.com>>
> To: pd-list at lists.iem.at <mailto:pd-list at lists.iem.at>
> Subject: Re: [PD] Pd without internationalization?
> Message-ID: <20211012091450.wjpam6vxgxz3unyw at fastmail.com <mailto:20211012091450.wjpam6vxgxz3unyw at fastmail.com>>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> * Dan Wilcox <danomatika at gmail.com <mailto:danomatika at gmail.com>> [2021-10-12 11:06]:
> [...]
>>> Thanks! Whenever I am teaching people entirely new to Pd, who often have
>>> their OSes set to different languages, the different menu entries cause
>>> puzzled faces.
>> 
>> Ha and the opposite is also true, especially in non-English teaching environments. Just goes to show there is no optimal choice ex pet providing more choice, I suppose.
> Thanks for reminding us Dan! It makes me wonder how much english users
> need to know to use Pd. After all the object names, help patches, etc.
> is all english.

There is some discussion on how to add support for loading localized help patches for instance.

https://github.com/pure-data/pddp/issues/3 <https://github.com/pure-data/pddp/issues/3>

One thing to standardize, for instance, would be certain terms such as "array", "symbol", "number", "bang" etc as Pd-specific technical terms. I think this would help across languages when teaching.

> [...]
>> The current system integrates with the system locale setting so the idea is whatever the user is already using is also picked up by Pd. For most apps this is preferred. For some reason, it never seems to be good for most people in Pd land, possibly since the translations have not always been fully covered, etc.
>> 
>> In any case, you can currently set the locale when starting Pd on the commandline over via start script or Windows batch file. See the info in the po/README.txt:
>> 
>> https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/blob/master/po/README.txt#L44 <https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/blob/master/po/README.txt#L44><https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/blob/master/po/README.txt#L44 <https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/blob/master/po/README.txt#L44>>
>> 
>> This does not require editing the installed Pd folder structure and you can simply provide a set of scripts the students can double-click to force the en locale.
> Thanks for pointing this out to me! For now it is quicker to have them
> delete the po folder rather than having to package Pd for three OSes
> with a custom script or asking them to modify one.

Quicker, but perhaps a worse user experience, especially when they update.

No modification of the Pd package or .app bundle is required. Just have a script they can place on their system and run, that's it. 

For macOS, the script just needs to find the latest Pd in the /Applications folder or wherever the .app bundles are placed. For Windows, the .bat file can simply be added to the Pd folder and double-clicked. For Linux, a start script can be placed anywhere since it calls "pd" on the command line.

The install process would be:

1. Go to pure-data.info <http://pure-data.info/> and download the latest vanilla
2. Download a .zip from my class website which has a script for macOS, a script for Linux, and a batch file for Windows
3. Place the script/batch file in the needed location
4. Double-click to run in English

Repeat steps 1 (& 3 for windows) when upgrading. I see "add an extra script" more positive than "delete the translation files in the distribution." :)

Here is a zip with some basic scripts I whipped up you can try: startpd_en.zip <http://docs.danomatika.com/pdbuilds/other/startpd_en.zip> (Not fully tested on all platforms.)

--------
Dan Wilcox
@danomatika <http://twitter.com/danomatika>
danomatika.com <http://danomatika.com/>
robotcowboy.com <http://robotcowboy.com/>



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