French: Should the term plugin be translated?

[twenster]

Hi everyone,

From my Pull Request #619, I have translated the term plugin into a french equivalent. Unhappiness arose. I'm raising this issue from the comment to have a broader audience and have a discussion around the use of that term. Maybe in the past, there has been a rule, that I don't know and haven't found in this repo.

I see 2 questions we have to discuss.

Q1 - Should the term be translated? and which criteria should there be to decide one or the other?
Q2- If the term is allowed to be translated, which term can we use.

In the PR, I explained my take on this:
Q1:
The term should be translated as other applications, documentation exists that this is possible. In my eyes, this is a quality improvement of the french translation and avoids mixing french and English. I think the user base is quite broad and will become broader. We should use plain french term.

Q2:
After doing research, a set of 4 different names are coming. These are mostly recommended by France french, Belgian french and Quebecois authorities as preferred words to use for a plugin :
. module d'extension,
. module externe,
. greffon,
. plugiciel.
A fifth can be added even if the meaning is different, but the purpose is the same: extension (which is the same name as in English)

Selecting "greffon" as translation came with the following reasons:

• short name. French as quite often longer names and sentences. From a UI point of view, a shorter name will help not break buttons or text in the interface
• greffon is a graft in English. an in-plant. It's a horticultural technique. So this term matches quite well to keep the original spirit. The term can be also found in the medical, computer, and biochemistry fields.
• searching this term on the web and more specifically on Github gave me enough results to be confident this term is used and alive in different projects.

Now, I like to invite users to add their constructive comments, criteria, arguments and sources, as well as any link to past rules that have been decided.
There are may be more questions to discuss, let us know.

Thank you for reading this far.

[Mara-Li]

Hello Twenster, I made the following update in #631.

My take on greffon :

• Not really used and know by end-user.
• The terme "greffon" is more used in the biological/medecinal field. Not for UI/UX/Informatics field.
• Officially, the term proposed for Plugin is "Module d'extension" or "extension". I choosed in my new translation "module complémentaires". This term is well better in the informatic field, used mostly by browser (as Firefox for example).

Officiellement, le terme préconisé par la Commission générale de terminologie et de néologie est « module d'extension » ou en abrégé « extension ».

I think you're from quebec to choose Greffon ? :p

Ce terme étant un anglicisme, de nombreux termes français ont été proposés pour le remplacer : module d’extension (terme recommandé en France par la DGLFLF2 et par la Communauté française de Belgique3), module externe, greffon ou encore plugiciel4. (terme proposé par l’Office québécois de la langue française en 1996 et approuvé par l'Académie française en 2009[réf. nécessaire]). La forme abrégée « extension » acceptée par la DGLFLF peut conduire à des confusions avec l'extension de nom de fichier, ou l'extension de logiciel, qui ont d'autres significations.

[Mara-Li]

Ma proposition de traduction :

Original term	French translation
Plugin(s)	Module(s)
Core Plugin(s)	Module(s) Principaux/al
Community Plugin(s)	Module(s) complémentaire(s)
frontmatter	Bloc de métadonnées
monospace	monospace

J'ai choisi de prendre le terme de "bloc de métadonnée" plutôt que liminaire car :

• Je n'ai jamais vu de ma vie le terme liminaire utilisé (en tout cas en France métropolitaine, je ne peux pas me prononcer pour les Québecois, suisse et belge, cela dit) ni dans les (rares) documentations traduites qui concernent des langages utilisant le frontmatter.
• Il est notable de remarquer que la documentation de Zettlr utilise ce terme dans sa documentation française en se basant sur la terminologie de pandoc (https://docs.zettlr.com/fr/core/yaml-frontmatter/) (https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/wiki/Pandoc-User's-Manual-in-French#extension-yaml_metadata_block)
• Je considère que l'usage dépasse la forme. De fait, il ne faut pas perdre le sens et le point de vue de l'utilisateur final. L'utilisateur d'Obsidian comprendra bien plus facilement le terme de bloc de métadonnée que le terme liminaire.

Pour monospace, mon choix est plus simple, je me base simplement sur l'usage. Ce type de typo étant majoritairement utilisé par les IDE, les utilisateurs sauront plus facilement de quoi on parle. De plus, ce terme est plus court que "non proportionnel". De plus, une simple recherche sur internet ramènera la définition à l'utilisateur.
D'ailleurs, le terme français (métropole) est "police à espacement fixe" ou "chasse fixe".

Bref, il ne faut pas perdre le point de vue de l'utilisateur final !

[ericaxu]

Hi, was there a decision on this?

[twenster]

Hi,
In my case, I'm waiting for other french contributors to give their input. There is not enough voice to make a final decision about this only word.

However for this project to go ahead, until a full discussion about the correct translation plugin I will update my text to "Extensions (plugin)" for now. When we settle a definitive translation with the french contributors, I will use that word.

As for frontmatter, I don't like "bloc de métadonnée" because it's long, but it's french, so go for it.

As for "monospace", I like the suggested "chasse fixe" as it's also short.

Does it make sense ?

Other french contributor are welcome to add their comments.

[ryanscordino]

Hi,

I think this issue should be closed. "Plugin" is mainly used in French software, as well as "module". For frontmatter, "bloc de métadonnée" seems fine, it's hard to find a better translation. And for "monospace", it feels weird to use "chasse fixe". I see what you mean, but I don't know. Even thought it's the correct spelling, I tend to see more the use of "monospace" or "largeur fixe".