Comment 12 for bug 1762889

It's true that dh_translations builds a POT file for the help files in gnome-mahjongg. It's this code in dh_translations:

    # try to build help POT
    if (-e 'help/Makefile') {
        chdir 'help';
        system ('make', 'pot');
        chdir '..';
    }

Can't help wondering why that code is there.

And yes, it would be possible to make dh_translations build help-gnome-mines.pot etc.

But do we want to make use of such help file templates for LP translations? Personally I'd say no. We are not using LP for gnome-user-docs, but rely on the upstream translations. In the light of that, why would we want to spend considerable time with exporting translations and putting them into source for a bunch of packages with only a few help pages each?

And if you agree that we don't want them, why would we let dh_translations build them? To avoid a command in libgweather's debian/rules for building libgweather-locations.pot? ;)

On 2018-04-14 00:45, Jeremy Bicha wrote:
> I guess we do need to be smart enough to know which one is the
> main gettext domain though or at least the one to insert into the
> .desktop files that we strip.

The --domain option serves that purpose, and it's useful whether we build the help file POTs or not. Currently I'm aware of two packages where --domain is needed: g-c-c and libgweather.

Jeremy, I don't think your original suggestion was wrong at all. The latest patch addresses both that and provides a way to pick the right one in case of multiple non-help domains.

( Yes, I'm biased. :) )