GNOME Terminal new string for GNOME 46

[egmontkob]

Dear Translators,

GNOME Terminal received a brand new string to translate in its “gtk3” and “gnome-46” branches.

While we’re here, please let me bring the following to your attention regarding GNOME Terminal’s branches and forthcoming releases:

The “master” branch now contains the in-progress GTK4 work. Unfortunately we weren’t able to complete the port for GNOME 46, we still have a few complicated blocker issues. There might be a technological preview tarball release labeled 3.97-ish, but we won’t yet recommend its use. So, for translations, this branch might be a bit less important for the time being.

What is more important is to keep the GTK3 version up to date. We’re talking probably about 2-3 new strings since the last major GNOME release.

The “gtk3” branch is to the GTK3 version as what “master” is to GTK4. That is, this is the branch where further major branches will be forked off from, as long as we’re releasing GTK3-based versions.

The “gnome-46” branch has already been forked off from “gtk3”, this is what will become GNOME Terminal 3.52.x for GNOME 46.x.

Sorry if it’s all quite confusing. The point is:

Please keep the “gtk3” branch well translated, and also cherry-pick those translations to the “gnome-46” branch. This should be very little work.

If you happen to have time to translate “master” then that’s a bonus, but not top priority for now.

Thank you!

[afranke (Alexandre Franke)]

This is confusing indeed.

We usually have at most two “active” branches, a stable one and a development one. Sounds like for you this would be gnome-46 and gtk3 respectively. Do you have estimate, even a very rough one, of what the future holds for the gtk3 and master branches? I know plans change all the time and it’s ok if it turns out very different from your current answer, but it would help a lot in understanding the general direction if you could tell us. With the information you gave us so far, it looks like master is still too far away and should not be available on DL currently.

I would also like to know if you really needed to branch for gnome-46 so soon. It is usually recommended to branch as late as possible, and only if introducing breaking changes.

Regarding cherry-picking, it works the other way around. Translators should work on the stable branch and then, when using the Submit the repository action on Damned lies, check the box to have the changes applied to the stable branch. So here it’s gnome-46 that needs to be translated first.

[egmontkob]

We usually have at most two “active” branches

Due to the ongoing GTK3 → GTK4 migration, we’re not in a “usual” situation

Do you have estimate, even a very rough one, of what the future holds for the gtk3 and master branches?

Eventually current master will again become the “main” stable Terminal, based on GTK4. We were hoping for this to happen for this cycle, but it did not due to some nontrivial problems (mainly: geometry issues on non-GNOME desktops, and lack of a11y). We are hoping for these to be sorted out by GNOME 47. This may or may not happen, maybe it’ll be release-ready for GNOME 48 or 49 only.

If master isn’t stable yet by then, we’ll branch off gnome-47, gnome-48 etc. from gtk3. If master becomes stable (which is the goal), we’ll branch from that.

(I don’t know if there’ll be parallel stable GTK3 and stable GTK4 releases for a while, and if so then how it will look like wrt. the branches.)

I would also like to know if you really needed to branch for gnome-46 so soon.

The project’s main developer has been branching about a month before release for many years now. I’m not quite sure of the reasons.

Regarding cherry-picking, it works the other way around.

For me as a developer, it makes more sense to submit code changes into the main development branch and cherry-pick to individual version-specific stable branches. If for you translators it’s the other way around that makes more sense, then sure please do so, it’s absolutely fine (and sorry for confusing you with my way of thinking :)).

For GNOME 46 the release will be made from the (no surprise) gnome-46 branch.

For GNOME 47, 48 etc. the branches gnome-47, gnome-48 etc. may one day be branched off of gtk3 (if we’re not ready with the GTK4 master yet).

Regarding the translatable strings, I think the gnome-46 and gtk3 branches are identical right now. They might diverge in the future.

I hope I could clarify the situation. Don’t hesitate to ask if you have any further questions.

[egmontkob]

it looks like master is still too far away and should not be available on DL currently.

As per the bugs
POTFILES warning on damned lies (#8047) · Issues · GNOME / gnome-terminal · GitLab,
POTFILES.in needs updating (#8060) · Issues · GNOME / gnome-terminal · GitLab,
currently master isn’t even correctly hooked up for translation from our side. According to the main developer this is deliberate in order not to waste translator efforts on strings that are still very likely to change.

So I have to retract my words “If you happen to have time to translate master then that’s a bonus”. Please ignore our master branch until the bug I’ve just linked is fixed.

[afranke (Alexandre Franke)]

I have put gnome-46 in “Other Apps (stable)” and gtk3 in “Other Apps”. I have removed master.

I would advise to not wait until “it is ready” to keep the POTFILES up to date. It is a good habit to put the files in there as soon as they need to be, regardless of whether the branch is being worked on or not by translators.

Please let us know ASAP when master is going to be the next stable, so we can add it back and give as much time as possible for our translator to work on it.

[egmontkob]

I have put gnome-46 in “Other Apps (stable)”

Thanks!

I would advise to not wait

Please let us know ASAP

I’ve forwarded your request into the aforementioned bug. I can’t promise that I personally will be around and active in the project in half or one years time when this happens, it’s easily possible that I won’t.