gettext: Icons
16.2.3.1 How to handle icons in Desktop Entry files
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Icons are generally locale dependent, for the following reasons:
• Icons may contain signs that are considered rude in some cultures.
For example, the high-five sign, in some cultures, is perceived as
an unfriendly “stop” sign.
• Icons may contain metaphors that are culture specific. For
example, a mailbox in the U.S. looks different than mailboxes all
around the world.
• Icons may need to be mirrored for right-to-left locales.
• Icons may contain text strings (a bad practice, but anyway).
However, icons are not covered by GNU gettext localization, because
• Icons cannot be easily embedded in PO files,
• The need to localize an icon is rare, and the ability to do so in a
PO file would introduce translator mistakes.
Desktop Entry files may contain an ‘Icon’ property, and this property
is localizable. If a translator wishes to localize an icon, she should
do so by bypassing the normal workflow with PO files:
1. The translator contacts the package developers directly, sending
them the icon appropriate for her locale, with a request to change
the template file.
2. The package developers add the icon file to their repository, and a
line
Icon[LOCALE]=ICON_FILE_NAME
to the template file.
This line remains in place when this template file is merged with the
translators’ PO files, through ‘msgfmt’.
Info Catalog
gettext: Desktop Entry