usefulness UI labels: "# of #" doesn't make sense for singular or nil quantities

Hi Ajenbo. Thanks for reporting.
Whilst I agree that it doesn't make exact sense, I think it is necessary to display not only how many people have found it useful, but also how many people have voted either way. So your suggestion could be altered to something like "One person has voted and (did not find)/(found) this review useful"

Actually, having another think about this, I think it would be a good idea to introduce a percentage. That would allow us to solve this problem and also give users a consistent basis for which to compare the usefulness of reviews.

e.g.
"6 out of 8 people (75%) found this review useful"
"1 person (100%) found this review useful"
"1 out of 8 people (13%) found this review useful"

alternatively, without the percentage:
"6 people found this review useful (8 votes)"
"1 person found this review useful (1 vote)"
"1 person found this review useful (8 votes)"

That would work. A quick comment to the other one, wouldn't 0 fall under plural form?

Yep 0 should be plural.

I've made some changes in the attached branch which fixes the issue by implementing my proposal to use percentages and get rid of the 'out of x people' text. Will need review to determine if this is an appropriate solution as it is no longer in line with the existing spec.

Whenever fewer than about 50 people had voted at all, which would almost always be true, showing a percentage would inevitably look over-precise: "2 people found this review helpful (67%)." So, please don't use a percentage.

English grammar just doesn't have great-sounding syntaxes for some of these combinations, but I don't think it matters much really. Using "people" consistently is probably the least bad. 0 of 1 people, 1 of 1 people, 0 of 2 people, 1 of 2 people. Maybe add a translation note telling translators not to panic. :-)

This is fair enough. I will revert to display it always as 'x of x people' unless no-one has voted.

Attached branch updated as per comments above.
Below is a summary of what is implemented in the branch (with current server functionality - this will again change once server has the capability to track if the current user has voted on this review or not):

"x of x people found this review hepful. Did You? Yes / No" - if any votes and current user is not the reviewer
"x of x people found this review hepful." - if any votes and current user is the reviewer
"Was this review helpful? Yes / No" - if no votes and current user is not the reviewer
<no label or buttons at all> - if no votes and current user is the reviewer

This bug was fixed in the package software-center - 3.1.21

---------------
software-center (3.1.21) natty; urgency=low

  [ Aaron Peachey ]
  * lp:~aaronp/software-center/reviews-usefulness:
    - view/appdetailsview_gtk.py: string updates in line with spec
  * softwarecenter/view/softwarepane.py:
    - quick string fix to remove space between text and question marks
      in search result suggestion strings (LP: #725966)
  * softwarecenter/view/appdetailsview_gtk.py:
    - usefulness label updates (LP: #725679)
  * view/appdetailsview_gtk.py:
    - display name used for reviews instead of username (LP: #713013)

  [ Michael Vogt ]
  * merged lp:~mvo/software-center/weblive that contians the remaining
    bit of the weblive support, this is disabled by default and you need
    to run software-center --with-weblive to enable it
  * utils/update-software-center:
    - fix typo in loghandler, thanks to Stephane Graber
  * merged lp:~gary-lasker/software-center/deauth_username, many thanks
  * softwarecenter/view/appdetailsview_gtk.py:
    - expose usefulness UI
  * softwarecenter/db/reviews.py:
    - deal properly with "Not modified" return value
  * merged lp:~mmcg069/software-center/detailsview-stuff

  [ Matthew McGowan ]
  * fix hang in appdetails view
  * improve presentation of the application details
  * reduce flickering in the detailsview

  [ Gary Lasker ]
  * softwarecenter/enums.py,
    softwarecenter/backend/aptd.py:
    - fix transaction-started for broken depends case (LP: #724321)
  * softwarecenter/db/database.py:
    - fix crash when deauthorizing computer (LP: #726876)
  * softwarecenter/db/update.py,
    test/test_appview.py,
    test/test_database.py:
    - track cataloged_time for items not in axi (e.g. for-purchase apps)
      so that they will show up in What's New, add/modify unit tests
      per the changes (LP: #684077)
 -- Michael Vogt <email address hidden> Thu, 03 Mar 2011 14:51:34 +0100