Bug 91612 - incorrect naming of "File" menu in German on OSX
Summary: incorrect naming of "File" menu in German on OSX
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Localization (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
4.3.7.2 release
Hardware: All macOS (All)
: lowest enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: macOS-UI-polish
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Reported: 2015-05-25 12:42 UTC by Georg Schwarz
Modified: 2018-03-17 14:46 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

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Description Georg Schwarz 2015-05-25 12:42:15 UTC
In Macintosh applications, the "File" menu in German is called "Ablage", not "Datei". The Mac version of LibreOffice (4.3.7.2 with appropriate German language pack installed) incorrectly uses the term "Datei" for that menu entry.
Comment 1 Adolfo Jayme Barrientos 2015-05-25 18:25:42 UTC
This is debatable. What if the "incorrect" translation is Apple's?
Comment 2 Georg Schwarz 2015-05-25 19:16:21 UTC
please let me add the following:

This issue is solely about user interface consistency. I am not a Mac programmer, but I am sure those around here who are will be able to confirm that Apple with the Macintosh did and does provide certain Human Interface guidelines (as do many if not most other platforms). I would be very surprised not to find the naming of standard menu entries of the menu bar being standardized there for every supported language. For German, what I am consistently seeing, for MacOS Finder, Apple-provided applications, or any third party application, is (from left to right) <program's name>, "Ablage", "Bearbeiten" (would be "File" and "Edit" in English), followed by the more application-specific menu entries.

Please note that I did not say that this was a "translation" issue; in fact it's simply an issue of user interface consistency, and Open Office (in its MacOS version) uses an incorrect term here (which I guess should be easy to fix, so probably no need for lengthy debates).

Now to the linguistic aspect (which I consider only second in relevance here, but still, for completeness, let's briefly dive into that, too):
I do believe that Apple's (or whoever's it actually is) translation of "File" in that particular case is not only correct but also the most adequate one. The entire setting of a "desktop" was specifically chosen (by Apple as well as by others before and after) to reflect the metaphor of a (traditional) office desktop. While the English word "file" does translate into "Datei" in German for technical data recording/indexing/processing purposes (e.g. in a library of books or for a computer's file system = Dateisystem), in the context of office work and (traditionally paper-bound) office processes the word "Ablage" is the correct translation. So whoever selected that wording in German (I'm not even sure it was Apple or someone before; but again this is not relevant here) did a very fine job, because it adequately reflects, in German, the intended notion of the desktop metaphor.
Comment 3 Alex Thurgood 2015-05-29 07:50:54 UTC
Well, LibreOffice, OpenOffice.org and even StarOffice before that, have always used Datei (taken from the initial Windows development of StarOffice).

The fact that LibreOffice doesn't respect Apple HIG is nothing new. LibreOffice on Mac started life (as OpenOffice.org) as a port running under XQuartz, so it has always had very obvious Linux origins.

Until someone steps up to the plate and volunteers a complete rewrite of the application code to look and behave like a "proper" Apple OSX application, then this bug report, which I'll confirm for the sake of it, will be unlikely to receive any attention.

Setting as enhancement