Bug 137506

Version:            (using KDE KDE 3.5.5)
Installed from:    SuSE RPMs
OS:                Linux

After installing my distro and starting KDE the first time, I have a "Desktop" and a "Documents" folder in my home-dir. Since KDE is started in the local language, i.e. German in my case, it does know about the language used and should create localised folders rather than English ones.

Of course the user can rename the folders, yet that results in them not being shown in the open/save-dialogue's speedbar. the user will have to find out that one has to change the paths in kcontrol. Although the latter is not a problem, if one knows about it (which is a problem, it should not be necessary.

Most users do not switch languages after installing KDE, so for them having localised folders straight away would make sense, since they chose their language during installation on purpose and KDE is localised anyway. Just translating the folders' names, e.g. in the speedbar, would confuse people, if they look at the actual filesystem and are looking for "Arbeitsfläche" or "Dokumente" but only find "Desktop" or "Documents". (The latter is not that difficult :))

At Novell's bugzilla I was told it is a design decision made by KDE to use fixed paths, which makes localised folders not possible. (https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=219928) I am not sure about that, since one can change the paths manually, but anyway, I am not a developer.

Is there something I do not see that would cause a problem, if users would get localised folders instead of the English ones?

Another issue is documentation. If some localised doc, howto or spoken help would try to tell the user to save his/her documents to Documents, the "Documents" cannot be translated, because it would point to the wrong path. I know that the same is true for /home, yet that one is not as frequently "seen" and used within KDE as Documents is.