> > The KControl tree list structure is defined in
> tdebase/applnk/kde-settings.menu. The individual tree list
> categories are named in various
> main/tdebase/applnk/kde-settings*.directory files. I haven't
> looked further to see how the sub items in each category are
> created.

I now see how they work. The sub items all are *.desktop files in $PREFIX/share/applications and have a related X-KDE-settings* option in the Categories key. With that information we should be able to start tinkering once you get the etherpad established.

> As for Translations - what is the state of translations on
> Trinity in
> general? I only use English so I am not really aware of it.
> How many
> languages do we provide? do we have any translators willing
> to do
> this?

I suspect even Tim has not tried to address translations and has side-stepped those challenges simply by leaving the original *.desktop files as-is. There are various translation tools but as mentioned in a recent thread, translations seldom are copy-and-paste. That is why I wrote we use such tools and then hope for the best. I am sure people using the other locales will let us know when we butcher their language. We don't have a user base to solve this challenge easily. At least not for every language. But we can post messages to the Trinity lists and ask for help.

One option would be for team members and users who attend college to solicit help on campus. Professors likely know of ways and other people who might help.

Another option is to encourage somebody in Trinity-land who speaks multiple languages to help as a translation team leader. That is, such a person who speaks multiple languages will be more familiar with distinct aspects. For example, to English speaking people, many foreign languages look "backwards" because words are placed in different locations. For example, in English somebody might say The Blue Book but in a different language the text would read The Book Blue. A person more familiar with other languages would know to watch for those kind of syntax challenges even when a translation tool correctly selects the words.

Another option will be to search the web for similar *.desktop files from all free/libre software.

Here is a list of the two-letter abbreviations used to identify each language:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes

What happens when a language is not translated in a desktop file? Does the underlying parsing code then default to Name and GenericName, which almost always are American English? If we can't translate everything is that a Bad Thing? Would such default text be better than butchering a language through a translation tool?

I have seen that most developers don't worry about translations until people using other languages contribute that specific translation. The challenge we face is many of these Trinity desktop files are already translated. When we rename some of the KControl items --- and that is a good long-term goal --- we start over from scratch and that might seem unfair to those already using Trinity.

Darrell