Re: @dircategory (Re: Translating Emacs manuals is of strategic importance)

[Jean-Christophe Helary <jean.christophe.helary@traductaire-libre.org>]

> On Jan 6, 2024, at 17:36, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
> 
>> Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2024 04:40:41 +0000
>> From: Jean-Christophe Helary <jean.christophe.helary@traductaire-libre.org>
>> Cc: Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com>, Vincent Belaïche <vincent.b.1@hotmail.fr>, emacs-devel@gnu.org, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>, help-texinfo@gnu.org
>> 
>>> I wasn't talking about the manuals.  But even for the manuals there
>>> are some issues that need to be considered.  For example: what do we
>>> do with the info/dir file for these translated manuals? what should be
>>> @dircategory for them -- should it be a separate category, like
>>> "Translated manuals", or should it be the same as in the original
>>> English manuals?
>> 
>> 
>> I suppose the @dircategory is also what appears in the Emacs info top
>> page under “*Menu:”?
> 
> The category headings there, yes.
> 
>> If that’s the case, what about using “Translated manuals” for now,
>> since the number of translated manuals is very low?
> 
> I'd say the other way around: as long as we have very few
> translations, keeping them together with the English version is
> better.
> 
> I wonder what Texinfo folks have to say about that.  Are there any
> precedents for having such translations in DIR files?
> 
>> Other texinfo items that come to mind:
>> 
>> Would @author be also used for the translator?
> 
> @author is a TeX command and goes into the printed version.  For
> translation, we'd need a separate directive, I think, since a
> translator is not the author.  Again, this is something for the
> Texinfo folks to handle.

Legally speaking a translator is an author. Depending on the 
jurisdiction (Anglo-Saxon right vs EU right for ex.), the translator 
hold full copyright on the translation, unless it was a work for hire, 
etc. That’s why there are contracts between publishing houses and 
translators to allow or not the use of the translation is such and such 
format. I am not an IP lawyer, but I know what’s written in the 
contracts I’ve signed.

Creating another directive for the translation author seems like 
splitting hairs. But maybe not using @author at all and just adding a 
sentence in the text regarding the translation is the way to go.

>> Also, we will have to translate @node, because they appear in the
>> Section index. I see that they were kept in English in the SES manual.
> 
> If we translate @node names, links from the doc strings and
> cross-manual links will not work.

They will if they are translated in the other manuals. That’s what I’m 
doing in the Emacs manuals at the moment.

> But, for such links to work, we
> need a facility to tell the Info reader that when a link goes to a
> manual named FOO.info, it should visit FOO-LANG.info instead.  Again,
> something that involves a change in Texinfo and in all Info readers.

What are the practical cases where translating nodes would be a problem?

1. I read a manual in English, there is a link with a node in English, 
it directs to the other English manual.

It’s the expected behaviour.

2. I read a manual in French, there is a link with a node in English, 
it directs to the other English manual.

If the other manual exists in French, it is not the proper behaviour.

3. I read a manual in French, there is a link with a node in French, it 
directs to the other French manual.

If the other manual exists in French, it is the proper behaviour.

If it does not, we should have an error message that informs the reader 
that the manual is not translated.


So instead of a complex look up system, just an error message for links 
that don’t work should be sufficient. Don’t you think?

One issue seems to be that nodes have natural language IDs that also 
appear in the manual. If nodes were just arbitrary IDs associated to a 
string, like “2.1.2.fr” associated to “Ma section”, while “2.1.2.en” is 
“My section”, it would be easier to do the lookup and the manual would 
print the correct string.

In my current work on the Emacs manual, every time I find a node, I 
look for it in all the other chapters/manuals and adapt its translation.