The source/English (UK) translation uses typewriter glyphs everywhere, but the UI would (and does) look much better using their typographic equivalents. It’s hard to show what I’m talking about because the forum automatically converts typewriter to typographic glyphs and they don’t look the same in a codeblock, but, for example:
'a' -> ‘a’
"a" -> “a”
... -> …
I already implemented typographic punctuation in the Dutch translations a long time ago under the assumption that the source strings were also going to be using them sooner or later, but seeing as that hasn’t happened yet, I get the feeling someone just forgot to do it.
In my eyes, it looks much worse with typographic quotes, all it ever seems to do is stop code from compiling. I acknowledge that i’m colored by my particular country Sweden having settled on using just one style of quotes, so only straight quotes is not even really a noticeable difference. But even so, i fail to see any advantage.
And please turn that automatic conversion off on the forum too - i have had too many logs and pieces of code mangled by this.
You only need to type them once, when translating the string (and at least on Scandinavian keyboards, they’re not that hard to type - I know, because I use one). If all else fails you can just run a script to replace all occurrences of the typewriter glyphs with the proper typographic glyphs. I’m not saying all translations should use ‘’“”, just that they should all be using the proper typographic style for their language/country, and that example should be set by the default/source language using proper punctuation instead of 150-year old artifacts.
Any self-respecting piece of software has swapped out the old typewriter glyphs or is in the process of doing so (the longer you wait, the more daunting the task will eventually be). I’m writing this reply on a forum that uses the typographic glyphs, in a browser (Firefox) that uses typographic glyphs, in a DE (GNOME) that uses typographic glyphs. Any proper rich text editor swaps out typewriter for typographic glyphs. Actually, that would be a nice keyboard function, too, and I believe Apple already does this. I’ll make a new request for that.
Hmm, i have never seen or used them, and google gives me nothing… Where are they? Do you mean the apostrophes óò? I guess they can be single quotes, but shouldn’t.
How would the script know which ones match? (The primary argument i have heard for typographic quotes is to aide in matching up, potentially nested, quotations).
I choose to see that as an evolution and simplification, not a regression. (Making the assumption here that typographic quotes are older and originate in handwriting).
Many pieces of software i use still use the this terrible attempt at typographic `quotes’.
(This use was never ever correct: https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/quotes.html)
I guess having seen this all too much just makes me fed up with any such constructs, well-formed or not, in any software.
I took a look around Firefox and my DE, Cinnamon, but couldn’t find anything quoted at all, so i guess use is pretty limited? Not sure that is a reason fro or against, probably neither.
You assume the change will happen globally, perhaps you are right, but i think (and hope) the laziness of average users will prevail. Typographic quotes belong in typesetting and similar (lengthy) things with “high production value”, not in “digital speech”.
This is my opinion. I don’t think yours is invalid, i just wanted to dissent because i wholeheartedly disagree.
But that’s not what I’m talking about at all? I’m talking about replacing U+0027 with U+2018/U+2019 and replacing U+0022 with U+201C/U+201D.
I don’t know what you’re talking about here, but you can just press Alt Gr + V/B on a Scandinavian keyboard and you get typographic “”. Shift+Alt Gr+V/B gives typographic ‘’. How you’re supposed to type on them on Windows, I have no idea, I can genuinely barely add accents in Windows.
I don’t know how it works in e.g. this very forum, but the logic behind it cannot be extremely complex: make it a right quotation mark by default, but if it’s preceded by a space or a newline and followed directly by a letter or number, it should be a left quotation mark.
Typewriter quotation marks are about as wrong to use professionally as (hypothetically) using | to represent any kind of bracket.
You learn something new every day.
I truly had no idea.
They probably thought it unnecessary, and i guess i’ll have to side with Microsoft here. Ooops!
Yet someone thought they deserved to be present on the keyboard and in the ASCII table (probably an intertwined relationship), whereas typographic quotes were not. I can only agree with this.
You mention a good keyword there, professionally. I guess i have a higher bar for where i see the need to be that professional, i.e. basically only in print.
I’ll stop raining on you request now… sorry i don’t agree, i just don’t see the advantage.
The advantage is that users may feel more “at home”, more comfortable if the localization is indeed localized ;). It is about using the natural forms for each language. There are many similar things like using “.” or “,” in numbers (“3.1415”), or using “.” or “’” to separate thousands (“100’000”).
Whereas I would not like some “AI” know better than me what I would like to type, be it 1,000 (one thousand) or 1.000 (one ‘dot’ 000 or one thousand in English keyboard). Mixing between German and English often.
Especially:
Which would be valid then for any type of code you write on device…
Yes, of course! This request is about translations and other static localisation, though. There’s another feature request for “dynamic” changes: Make keyboard use typographic glyphs by default
I think there’s a misunderstanding ;). (Or maybe I misunderstood the thread :’).)
Ha! But that’s either the result of the user typing the quotes before putting them in a codeblock, or a bug in the forum software (and perhaps the forum should hold off on swapping out typewriter for typographic glyphs until the post is submitted). Either way, it’s not a problem of typographic glyphs by themselves, and it doesn’t really have anything to do with, as @ichthyosaurus aptly called it, static localisation.
