723049 - [DE] TB Keyboard Shortcuts documentation: Port Major Revision 5658 to German -> revision 5754 (de)

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Help Documentation, defect)

Description

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #721666 +++

This bug is intended for details and discussion of porting my major revision #5658 (bug 721666) of the Keyboard Shortcuts documentation article (1) to the German locale (DE) (2).

I am about to land my translation (and I want to link here from that revision's comment, so I need this bug first). Please find the URL of that revision in the URL field or subsequent comments.

With this revision, after many hours of work (again...), I have ported a wide range of major improvements to the very outdated German version (3), which was still stuck at revision 116 (4) from March 2011:

- add {for} selectors for different OS and different versions of TB
- fix/remove lots of wrong/outdated keyboard shortcuts
- modernize / simplify MAC shortcuts notation for DE (I'll comment more on that later)
- add about 30+ shortcuts that were missing (bug 716254), especially for, but not limited to composition
- major regrouping of shortcuts in "message functions" section
- add separate section for "Search and filter functions" (they are too important to be lost in the crowd)
- conflate "Newsgroup messages" section with only 3 newsgroup-specific commands into "Message functions" section (the old structure was logically misleading because all message functions also apply to newsgroup messages)
- add subsection table headings to all sections, group logically related functions (for meaningful and human-friendly navigation instead of endless one-for-all lists lacking recognizable structure - after all, this is a HELP document!)
- add linkified TOC to this article (to allow fast-track navigation)
- add linkified TOC for list of shortcuts (main section headings)
- add links for quick navigation within shortcuts list, including inter-section cross-references
- improve many command captions

For more details, see bug 721666 and its dependants.

This revision is a major milestone as it concludes a series of major revisions to reconvert "Keyboards Shortcuts" into a useful document that keeps the promise with complete, accurate, and accessible information. Still, it may not be the end of the road (and nobody/nothing is perfect). For further refinements, pls refer to tbkbd-doc-tracker Bug 714031 and tbkbd-docnew-tracker Bug 714044. And please help to keep it up-to-date, by adding anything of relevance to tb-keyboard-tracker bug 713979 and tbkbd-doc-tracker Bug 714031.

Any hints or comments regarding this translation are welcome here.

(1) https://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/keyboard-shortcuts
(2) https://support.mozillamessaging.com/de/kb/keyboard-shortcuts
(3) https://support.mozillamessaging.com/de/kb/tastaturkuerzel/revision/1454
(4) https://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/keyboard-shortcuts/revision/116

Comment 1

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

This bug is about major German revision 5754 (de) (1), which ports major revision 5658 (en) (2) into German, thus landing a wide range of improvements in correctness, completeness, and structure of this document.

(1) https://support.mozillamessaging.com/de/kb/tastaturkuerzel/revision/5754

(2) https://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/keyboard-shortcuts/revision/5658

Comment 2

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to Thomas D. from comment #0)
> - modernize / simplify MAC shortcuts notation for DE (I'll comment more on
> that later)

As promised, here's a note on the new, modernized and simplified notation of keyboard shortcuts in German (DE), esp. for the MAC:

We used to be very German in our documentation, resulting in mnemonic nightmares like this, esp. for MAC:

Nachricht später senden (send message later, Command+Shift+Enter):
[Befehlstaste] + [Umschalttaste] + [Eingabetaste]   (13 syllables)

Nochmaliges Kopieren oder Verschieben in den vorherigen Zielordner (Move/Copy again to previous target folder, Command+Alt+M):
[Befehlstaste] + [Wahltaste] + [M]   (8 syllables)

Wow! Was für ein Wort-Ungetüm! Even for Germans, these monster "Shortcuts" are way too complex to read, and impossible to remember. Just count the syllables, and by the time you are finished with saying your "shortcut", it's no longer short. The mnemonic value is near zero. Besides, and worse, it's also confusing:

Albeit [Befehlstaste] is the correct and somewhat official German translation of [Command] key on MAC (Taste = key), there is no such animal in reality, not even on the German MAC keyboard. Surprise: The German MAC keyboard (see picture, (3)) actually has "cmd" (sic!) or even "command" (sic!) in plain writing on the command key. So why confuse users with translated key labels which don't even exist on their local keyboards? I imagine the German user trying to translate the traditional German translations back into English, before applying them to his international (German) MAC keyboard: "'Befehlstaste', right, that must be Command key, oh yes, here it is: [cmd], and then 'Umschalttaste', ja, I know that one [⇑], but why do they put 'Taste' which is so obvious... and then what, uhm, 'Ein-ga-be-ta-ste' - what!? Oh, they mean [ENTER]!!! Seriously, this is 2012, and we live in a global world, with global MAC keyboards, and German school kids learning English from grade 1 primary school...

Similarly, while "Wahltaste" or "Option" might be officially correct names for the [alt] key on the MAC, there must be a reason why Apple puts "alt" in plain writing onto that key. And "Wahltaste" per se is so perfectly meaningless and complex in German unless you are coming from the equally meaningless official documentation. Again, there is no way an ignorant user could figure out from looking at his German MAC keyboard that "Wahltaste" is that funny key which reads [alt -=]. Using [alt] where we mean [alt] also reduces and simplifies the maintenance burden for our documentation (both EN and DE, actually). If needed, it's much better to serve an explanation at the top, and then use visual/mnemonic key captions similar to those found on the keyboard.

[Umschalttaste] (German for "Shift key"), well, let's just call it [Umschalt] because it's obvious from the layout that this is a key (Taste). It's much easier to remember this when it's shorter. This applies to all OS.

[Eingabetaste], apart from 5 syllables where 2 would suffice ([Enter]), the last time I heard this was probably in my first 10-finger-touchtyping course some 20 years ago. It's correct and understandable, and nice German, but does it help to remember the shortcut? I think not. Just plain [Enter] will do.

And while we are here, MAC also has a [Ctrl] key (labelled sic, on German MAC keyboard, as seen in (3)), so we should call it just that, [Ctrl].

I'll summarize the conclusions from this rant in my next comment.

A nice and sane overview of all the different names for keys on the MAC and modern "German" translations can be found in (4).

(1) https://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/keyboard-shortcuts
(2) https://support.mozillamessaging.com/de/kb/keyboard-shortcuts
(3) http://www.apfeltalk.de/forum/attachments/47283d1242167397-deutsche-tastatur-de.jpg
(4) http://www.maceinsteiger.de/mac-os-shortcuts/

Comment 3

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(Short summary of comment #2)

So I hereby propose and declare the following should be used in the German documenation of keyboard shortcuts (Tastaturkürzel):

[Command]	to mean [cmd] key aka "Befehlstaste, Apfeltaste" (MAC only)
[Alt]		to mean [alt] or [alt -=] key aka "Alttaste, Optionstaste, 
		Wahltaste" (all OS)
[Umschalt]	to mean [⇑] key aka "Shift, Umschalttaste, Hochstelltaste" (all OS)
[Strg]		to mean [Ctrl] key on German keyboards (Win, Linux)
[Ctrl]		to mean [Ctrl] key on MAC keyboards (MAC only)
[Enter]		to mean [↵] or [Enter] key (all OS) (to be done)

There's some more we need to agree on, but these are the most frequent.

A nice and sane overview of all the different German names for keys on the MAC and modern "German" equivalents can be found in (4). We're not there yet, but imo that's where we are going, in a global world.

(3) http://www.apfeltalk.de/forum/attachments/47283d1242167397-deutsche-tastatur-de.jpg
(4) http://www.maceinsteiger.de/mac-os-shortcuts/