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Localizable location? #1390

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jspitz opened this issue Oct 28, 2024 · 20 comments
Open

Localizable location? #1390

jspitz opened this issue Oct 28, 2024 · 20 comments
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datamodel enhancement localisation concerns lbx files or localisation in general

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@jspitz
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jspitz commented Oct 28, 2024

Many of the (larger) cities where publishers locate have different or differently spelled names in different languages (e.g., Wien -- Vienna -- Vienne -- Beć, ...; Brüssel -- Brussels -- Bruxelles, ...). In bibliographic entries, the publisher location normally should be given in the main language of the document.

So I wonder whether \DeclareListFormat{location} should not use

\ifbibstring{#1}{\bibstring{#1}}{#1\isdot}%

(actually just like patent location). Biblatex could include bibkeys for the most common publisher locations, but even if it didn't, it would help to maintain an own list. Currently I am working around this with @strings which change depending on the document language.

Another related issue which I am not sure how to deal with concerns the (mainly US?) convention to give state names (Cambridge, MA), the use and form (cf. Cambridge, Mass.) of which seems to depend on style. Maybe this could be approached via data annotation, or \locstate{<bibkey>} macros. Anyways, this seems less central than the issue above.

@plk
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plk commented Oct 28, 2024

I would support this - I always wondered about the location and localisation - @moewew?

@jspitz
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jspitz commented Oct 29, 2024

If you consider to provide a selected list of some common locations, from the top of my head with a brief glance at this Wikipedia list

  • Antwerp
  • Athens
  • Basle
  • Berne
  • Beijing
  • Belgrade
  • Bolzano
  • Brescia
  • Brussels
  • Cape Town
  • Cairo
  • Cologne
  • Copenhagen
  • Florence
  • Geneva
  • Gothenbourg
  • The Hague
  • Hanover
  • Leuven
  • Lisbon
  • Lucerne
  • London
  • Milan
  • Moscow
  • Munich
  • Nijmegen
  • Nuremberg
  • Rome
  • Saint Petersburg
  • Strasbourg
  • Tokyo
  • Trieste
  • Venice
  • Vienna
  • Zurich

Maybe also:

  • Frankford (Frankfurt/M.)

@moewew
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moewew commented Oct 29, 2024

Hmmm. Thing is, this will probably be a huge burden to maintain and we probably have to add all sorts of cities once people start asking for it. (At some point we might even run into performance issues if we take it too far.) Do we really want this?

@moewew moewew added enhancement localisation concerns lbx files or localisation in general datamodel labels Oct 29, 2024
@plk
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plk commented Oct 29, 2024

We could do a short list - any others need to be added by users - the above list isn't too long and I doubt there would be performance issues with that.

@pauloney
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pauloney commented Oct 30, 2024 via email

@plk
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plk commented Oct 30, 2024

I think the idea is more that we put in the code and commented placeholders to allow this to work and then people can send pull requests etc. to update the various language files over time.

@jspitz
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jspitz commented Oct 30, 2024

We could do a short list - any others need to be added by users - the above list isn't too long and I doubt there would be performance issues with that.

That's what I was meaning to suggest.

@jspitz
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jspitz commented Oct 30, 2024

To expand a bit, one possibility would be to use just the English city names as bibstrings. This way, people will just get the English name if no localization exists in their language.

A drawback of this is that there might be cases where the name is localized without people being aware of it (say, they have "Vienna and London" in their entry and suddenly get "Vienne/Londres" or even "Vienne/London". This would not happen with lowercased keys, but then, the would just get the key ("vienna/London"). On the other hand, they only get this if they explicitly entered it.

@pauloney
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pauloney commented Oct 30, 2024 via email

@jspitz
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jspitz commented Oct 30, 2024

Would the list be part of the LBX files?

If it is decided that biblatex provides a selection of common locations, then this goes to the *.lbx files, as any other bibstrings. As with other bibstrings as well, any individual additions go elsewhere (for instance, a personal style or the preamble).

Let me rephrase that I think the feature would be very useful even if biblatex itself does not provide any of these strings out of the box (although I think that the list of locations with very common publishers is finite)

@pauloney
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pauloney commented Oct 30, 2024 via email

@jspitz
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jspitz commented Oct 30, 2024

I am in a camp that believes the language on a biblio entry should be unique and (in most cases) the language of the bibliography entry source and NOT the main language of the document -- because one needs to be able to locate it and that will give you the best chances.

We have autolang to control for that, no?

@jspitz
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jspitz commented Oct 30, 2024

The list itself does need some work. "Leuven" writes with a "v" in English

Thanks, corrected that one. But the list was meant as a first approximation only, anyway (and it's also arguable collected very much from my germanocentric perspective)

@pauloney
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pauloney commented Oct 30, 2024 via email

@jspitz
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jspitz commented Oct 30, 2024

I understand the concern, but I don't see how this is related to this requested feature particularly. This is a general issue that concerns all bibstrings. In any case, having the possibility to localize location at all will make a crucial difference to people who need it -- also if they have to come up with their own bibstring translations.

@pauloney
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pauloney commented Oct 30, 2024 via email

@jspitz
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jspitz commented Nov 3, 2024

@pauloney
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pauloney commented Nov 3, 2024 via email

@pauloney
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pauloney commented Nov 3, 2024 via email

@pauloney
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pauloney commented Nov 3, 2024 via email

jspitz added a commit to jspitz/biblatex that referenced this issue Dec 7, 2024
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