Wine uses three dots (...) rather than the Unicode ellipsis character (…) except in the Czech and Taiwanese translations that use the Unicode ellipsis character.
I think we should be consistent but the question is which to use.
I looked at the Windows interface guidelines and they don't have anything to say on this.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa974176.aspx#punctu... http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa511453.aspx#ellips...
Looking at what other platforms do, the Apple interface guidelines recommend using the Unicode ellipsis character saying assistive technologies need it. The GNOME and KDE guidelines don't have an official position but seem to use the Unicode character anyway:
http://simos.info/blog/archives/17
So should we go with the flow and switch to using ellipsis characters or should we stick with three dots?
On Wed, 3 Jul 2013 16:45:24 +0200 (CEST), Francois Gouget wrote:
So should we go with the flow and switch to using ellipsis characters or should we stick with three dots?
In most Japanese fonts, ellipsis character (U+2026) is designed like midline horizontal ellipsis (U+22EF). For instance, please look at 0x8163 in codepage 932 chart [1]. [1] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/gg638593
If we use ellipsis character (U+2026), Japanese user gets different impression from the character. Therefore, I prefer "three dots" style.
The reason of this behaviour is Japanese Industrial Standard, JIS X 0208. JIS X 0208 defines 3-dot leader character. As its example glyph is three middle dots, most font vendors designed the glyph like that. In Unicode conversion, the character is mapped into U+2026. Thus, its glyph is not like ellipsis.
Regards, Akihiro Sagawa
Francois Gouget fgouget@free.fr wrote:
So should we go with the flow and switch to using ellipsis characters or should we stick with three dots?
3 dots should be used in order to keep compatibility with bitmap fonts, fonts that don't have the ellipsis glyph and ansi APIs (GetMenuItemInfoA/GetWindowTextA).
On Wed, 3 Jul 2013, Francois Gouget wrote:
Wine uses three dots (...) rather than the Unicode ellipsis character (…) except in the Czech and Taiwanese translations that use the Unicode ellipsis character.
I think we should be consistent but the question is which to use.
Ah found it. Akihiro Sagawa had sent me a link to Microsoft's Language Portal with language-specific Style Guides:
https://www.microsoft.com/Language/en-us/StyleGuides.aspx
The Japanese one says: In Japanese, use three half-width periods as used in the source text.
So that settles it. While I was at it I also checked for some other languages:
Simplified Chinese: English (...) is used in both software and document localization.
Traditional Chinese: English (...) is used in both software and document localization. Keep in mind the following when using ellipses/suspension points: If a UI containing ellipses appears in a descriptive string or procedural steps, you could omit ellipses. Click "About..." for more information. 如需詳細資訊,請按一下 [關於]。 "About..." is a UI. When it is enclosed in [ ], ellipses should be omitted.
Czech: Ellipsis is commonly used both in English and Czech UI to denote a control (such as a push button or a menu item) that invokes a dialog window where the user enters additional input (such as Browse... = (+) Procházet...). Please that due to compatibility concerns, the ellipsis character (ALT+0133) should not be used in these cases. Use three dots instead.
When quoting such UI items in text (software controls as well as documentation), the three dots are omitted entirely.
Example: (-) Klikněte na tlačítko Procházet... (+) Klikněte na tlačítko Procházet. Note that any standard punctuation (except period) that is required by the syntax of the sentence, should still be added after the ellipsis. In Czech localized texts, it is recommended to avoid using the ellipsis entirely.
Note: The (-) denotes what not to do and the (+) what should be done.
I think these style guides are going to be a great resource for translators...
-
Akihiro Sagawa -
Dmitry Timoshkov -
Francois Gouget