Translations -- use GNU GetText please

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igorw
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Re: Translations -- use GNU GetText please

Post by igorw »

Oh, and you guys may want to look at the docs of the Symfony2 translation component, as this seems like the obvious choice for Symfony2.

Oleg
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Re: Translations -- use GNU GetText please

Post by Oleg »

igorw wrote: One of the things I don't like about these is that you no longer have a 'language key' for translation. This means your 'key' is the sentence itself, and if it ever changes, you have to change it in ALL language files. Correct? How do others deal with this?
The usual solution to this is to use more conservative strings in the code and provide an english language "translation", which is something we are already doing.

igorw
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Re: Translations -- use GNU GetText please

Post by igorw »

Do you have an example of this? Just curious to see how it looks exactly.

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Sierron
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Re: Translations -- use GNU GetText please

Post by Sierron »

Just as a question: Why don't you use the same language keys? Isn't the main reason to make it easier to translate things and untranslated things stay in english? I don't see a reason why you just could use the already existing languages keys.

igorw
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Re: Translations -- use GNU GetText please

Post by igorw »

Sure, we could do that. Then you just don't have the side-by-side translation with PO/xliff editors.

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Sierron
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Re: Translations -- use GNU GetText please

Post by Sierron »

Yeah, I guess that wouldn't be possible then. Someone mentioned removing translation from the codes so translators could have it easier is in some way false.

If you don't use the language keys and use the normal text instead, you have your templates full of the original english text (even if the languages keys are in some kind of #T#Long Text here.#T# thing (I imagine the original _() or gettext() things wouldn't be used)). Some templates have a massive usage of the language keys or just a big wall of text and moving the english text back into the templates would make it more confusing than it would be helpful. At least that's what i think.

number3nl
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Re: Translations -- use GNU GetText please

Post by number3nl »

igorw wrote:
Kudlaty wrote:symfony already use gettext :)
I'm not sure what symfony1 does, but Symfony2 does not use gettext. It has a custom parser for the XLIFF format. There are however tools to convert between PO and xliff.

One of the things I don't like about these is that you no longer have a 'language key' for translation. This means your 'key' is the sentence itself, and if it ever changes, you have to change it in ALL language files. Correct? How do others deal with this?
I'm not sure about Symfony2 way, looked at the translation page of Symphony2 for a bit...

Like I said before, I have been translating a bit for phpBB3 MODs lately, it's still a pain. When I look at the work I've done with WordPress Plugin's, its easy. Even if there is no predefined language file, you can just let POedit parse the plugin folder, discover all language bits that have been "gnuText" prepared. And translate them. In a simple and transparent way.

If there is as similar tool for Symphony2, then fine. If not consider all the work translators have to put in.

The code "_" call for translations is actually not a big issue. It makes it really easy to add a translation after the fact to PHP code... I personally like the shorthand, and transparent calls (unlink the "trans(" and "transChoice(", but then again, that's also very clear for understanding code).

About the key to language, I have yet to run into problems with the plugins for wordpress, but I bet it could.
About language in template files, hé, using tools to extract the "language" and put it in a seperate file works great.
About XLIFF or PO files, as long as it works... it does not matter, the tools matter though... a translator needs to focus on translation, not coding. A developer should have little "fuss" for translations to add.

Hope a better solution then the current "workings" will be used in future releases, like 3.x or 4.x.... Its really hard making translations now, also including them in "MODS" is not as easy as dropping in the translation file... and that's whats counts when you want a "wide" support base, let the non-developers help with translations, make it easy for them to join.

DrAcid
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Re: Translations -- use GNU GetText please

Post by DrAcid »

@ number3nl
Have I mentioned how great You are? :)

I totally agree with everything You've said!

Besides all the PRO points You've listed before, there's another one:
With gettext, all the translations can be easily created and managed online, on translation portals like launchpad.net or transifex.net!

Of 3.2 had this, it would be a charm!

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DavidIQ
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Re: Translations -- use GNU GetText please

Post by DavidIQ »

FYI the majority of the actual translators, the ones that translate phpBB itself, do not agree with any of you. All they see here is a push to use something new and shinny and different and a way to make their jobs more difficult. Nothing else. You're going to have to do better than "everyone else is doing it so phpBB should do it as well". The online tools thing is a good positive point but a lot of the translators do translations offline so an online tool is useless to them. The use of arrays to indicate groupings is another point brought up, which this does not seem to do.
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Oleg
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Re: Translations -- use GNU GetText please

Post by Oleg »

Please point your "actual translators" to this topic so that they can offer their views first-hand. Looking at the first page of this topic there are "actual translators" who would prefer gettext to the current way of doing translations.

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