Re: [Tuxpaint-devel] Font scoring method

[Albert C. <aca...@gm...>]

> I understand adding locale characters to the existing criteria works.
>
> However, I am a little at a loss where to put them, because;
>
>  * Japanese has no upper/lower cases distinction.
>  * No common/special Japanese panctuations is used in Tux Paint.
>  * Numbers are not different to those in ASCII.
>  * It has no line-like/circle-like characters.
>
> In addition, I think it would be reasonable to give high priority to the
> fonts supporting locale specific characters.
>
> I've pushed the change already, and would like to keep it if this has no
> side effect.

I would prefer the original design. It is not beneficial to have
a second string that is redundant. This only makes the code
more confusing for translators to use.

In the original design, the only flaw I can see is that the
intended usage was not documented very well.

The entire reason to have the string be translated with gettext was
to support languages like Japanese. It was meant for you to use.
If there are now two strings, why would the original one need to be
translated at all? This does not make sense.

It doesn't matter that Japanese lacks uppercase/lowercase,
has no line-like or circle-like characters, or shares numbers
with ASCII. You should simply add Japanese characters.
Leave the ASCII characters too, if it is at all reasonable for
a Japanese person to use them.

So to summarize proper usage:

Add characters that matter, choosing a few that are most likely
to be missing or indistinct. Remove any characters that have
no value at all. Most likely, you add characters but do not remove
any characters.

My suggestion for Japanese specifically:

Leave the ASCII. Add two katakana, two hirigana, and two kanji.
Add the Yen symbol. Maybe add the Yuan symbol, in case there
are fonts that unify them. If there exists a pair of characters that
appear distinct in a good Japanese font but might be identical or
missing in a Chinese or Korean font, be sure to add them.

It is highly likely that multiple translators have make mistakes.
Nearly all translations should retain the ASCII, adding a few
new characters.

For example, German should add:  ẞßβÖö€
That prefers fonts that distinguish lowercase eszett
from beta (a Greek letter) and uppercase eszett.