standard way to use shortcuts in l10n

[Simos Xenitellis]

Στις 14/Μάρ/2005, ημέρα Δευτέρα και ώρα 10:22, ο/η Jamil Ahmed έγραψε:
> Hello,
> 
> Is there any standard for using shortcuts while l10n-ing?
> Should I put shorcuts in localize form? or keep same english short cut 
> separately in parenthesis?
> 
> like, for
> msgid "_File"
> 
> Should I use,
> 
> msgstr "_xx"
> or
> msgstr "xx (_x)"
> or
> msgstr "xx (_F)"    <--- this _F will be taken from the msgid's shorcut
> 
> xx will be written in my localized character.
> 
> Waiting for your valued reply!

There was a similar discussion like this in the gnome-i18n
(lists.gnome.org) mailing list last week.
If your language is not alphabet-based, you may use the "xx (_F)"
notation. I think Bengali belongs here, no? As far as I understand it,
Bengali has "consonants" and the corresponding vowels are represented as
accents to make up the syllables. You may set the shortcut to the
consonant (I think that's what happens?), however you may have to take
into account any possible keymaps that let you type transliterated
bengali and they output proper bengali in the original script.

However, in the general case you do not have to. GTK+ has been adjusted
so that when you input in another language, the shortcuts for specific
keys still work. For example, for Greek, 
"_Arxeio"  (that's transliterated) would work either if I press Alt-A
while I am in the US keyboard or the Greek keyboard, as both letters are
mapped to the same key on the keyboard.

In general, to choose on what key to put the shortcut, the first option
is to try the first letter of the word. If you have two keywords
starting with the same letter (although it works, hit the key again and
you go to the next), you can (especially in syllabic languages) set the
shortcut on the syllable that is being stressed.
For example, "kali_mera", as it's more intuitive and easier to remember.

In any case, applications still respect the common shortcuts for
Copy/Paste/Cut/etc, as they are marked with somewhat global shortcuts,
in GTK+ applications.

Simos