[Pkg-ime-devel] Bug#644361: fcitx: Typos in package description

Justin B Rye jbr at edlug.org.uk
Wed Oct 5 11:29:37 UTC 2011


Martin Eberhard Schauer wrote:
> translating the package description (1) to German the spell-checker
> found typos. 

I only see one typo, but yes, it's got some problems.

> Description: Free Chinese Input Toy of X

Unfortunately this official expansion of FCITX makes a rather bad
description ("Free" is redundant in Debian, "Chinese" is overspecific,
"Toy" is misleading, and it's "for" X, not "of" X), so the long
description has a lot of work to do.

>  Fcitx is the Free Chinese Input Toy of X, which was initially designed

No need to repeat the expansion of FCITX; it might be better to say
right at the start that

   Fcitx is an Input Method engine which was initially designed [...]

>  for Chinese users, and used XIM protocol. Now it has evolved into a highly
                              ^the
>  modularized, feature rich input method framework for Unix-like platforms
>  supporting a considerable amount of front-ends, back-ends and modules.
                             ~~~~~~                         ^,
"Amount" in this sort of context (with "countable" nouns) is one of
those things that's common in speech but frowned on by schoolteachers.
I'd suggest s/amount/range/.

>  .
>  It is an ideal choice for the vast majority. Many of its features make
>  users of Unix-like platforms have a fully modern input experience for
>  the first time. It has also greatly lowered the effort for developers,
>  making the development of extended functions much easier than ever before.

Sorry, I don't agree with your s/threshold/effort/; "lowering the
threshold for developers" is a (rather clichéd) set expression.
But for most of the Fcitx suite it's an irrelevance anyway - this
description is supposed to be telling end users what they'll get when
they install the binary package, not the sourcecode.  By all means add
this text to the package-specific paragraph for fcitx-dev, but it
probably doesn't belong here.

There are still some slightly clumsy phrasings here, and worse, it's
a terrible summary of the package's advantages.  It's all very well to
claim that it makes users have (that should be "gives" or similar) a
good experience, but it's strange to try to *count* the unlisted
features that do this ("many").  "Modern" in a package description is
always a danger sign, since the features that were groundbreaking when
it was originally written may since have become liabilities.  The
"Unix-like platforms" part was already redundant the first time it was
mentioned.  And all these superlatives just fill me with distrust.
Can we have less advertising and more relevant information, please?

For instance, if it's no longer just for Chinese (the oldstable
package listed WuBi, Pinyin, and QuWei), what else does it support?
And where are the docs for people who can't read the Chinese-only
version at http://fcitx.github.com/handbook/?

>  .
>  This meta-package pulls in a set of recommended Fcitx components, which
>  is expected fit the needs of most desktop users.
              ^to

I (slightly) prefer "metapackage" to "meta-package", but it's a matter
of taste.

"Most desktop users" don't need an XIM in the first place, so I'd
rephrase it slightly.

So here's a work-in-progress version 3:

Description: Free Chinese Input Toy of X
 Fcitx is an Input Method engine which was initially designed for Chinese,
 using the XIM protocol. Now it has evolved into a highly modularized,
 feature rich input method framework supporting a considerable range of
 front-ends, back-ends, and modules.
 .
 [ACTUAL INFORMATION ABOUT ITS FEATURES GOES HERE]
 .
 This metapackage pulls in a set of components recommended for most
 desktop Fcitx users.

-- 
JBR	with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
	sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package





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