[development] Re: [drupal:dries] /modules contact.module

[Steven Wittens]

>So the idea is to allow for changes in mark-up via .po files?
>
>  
>
Not at all. The main rule is to avoid markup in translatable strings, 
unless it would split up text that needs to be together for proper 
translation. Unfortunately there are some cases where people disagree.

What everyone happily agrees on is links:
bad: t("You may change permissions on the %accesscontrol page.") with 
%accesscontrol => l(t('access control'), 'admin/access', ...).
good: t("You may change permissions on the <a href="%url">access 
control</a> page.") with %url => url('admin/access');

The link caption is part of the sentence, so it should be translated 
along with it. In some languages, the page title 'access control' would 
be in a nominative, while "on the access control page" would be in a 
dative (or equivalent).

The same rule applies to similar short inline elements, like <strong> or 
<code>.

For block level elements where the inside is a stand-alone string, there 
is also no debate:
bad: t('<h2>Some title</h2>');
good: '<h2>'. t('Some title') .'</h2>';

The help texts are a different story. An important point is whether 
different paragraphs of a help text belong together in one t(...) or 
not. If they do, then the '<p>' tags must be part of the translatable 
string (otherwise it would contain unmatched '</p><p>' inside it). If 
they don't, each paragraph can have its own '<p>'. t(...) .'</p>' call.

But unless I'm mistaken, Stefan's proposal a while ago was not just 
about moving the '<p>' outside the t() but also out of hook_help() and 
into the theme. This is a different issue and it was rejected because of 
multi-paragraph help; it would have to contain unmatched '</p><p>' as well.

Steven Wittens