Translations -- use GNU GetText please

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DavidIQ
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Re: Translations -- use GNU GetText please

Post by DavidIQ »

You mean YOUR translators as they translate the software YOU write ;) You should take some time to read the Translators forum over at .com and respond to their concerns there if you are really vested in this.
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Oleg
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Re: Translations -- use GNU GetText please

Post by Oleg »

I do look through the translators forum periodically. Usually I do not see anything requiring my attention.

Regardless, the venue for discussing changes to phpbb is area51 and not translators forum.

So far there are some translators favoring gettext or a similar solution and none objecting to it.

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DavidIQ
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Re: Translations -- use GNU GetText please

Post by DavidIQ »

So because none of those translators have come here and voiced their objections nobody is objecting it? Wow... :roll:
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Re: Translations -- use GNU GetText please

Post by Oleg »

Oleg wrote:Please point your "actual translators" to this topic so that they can offer their views first-hand.
Let's stay on topic.

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naderman
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Re: Translations -- use GNU GetText please

Post by naderman »

David is very on topic. The translators do communicate their, and requiring them to voice their opinion here as well is an unnecessary burden. We should provide the public with an overview of opinions offered there.

At the same time David, the translators are discussing a YAML proposal which is quite different from gettext. Many of the concerns raised about YAML do not apply to gettext.

DrAcid
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Re: Translations -- use GNU GetText please

Post by DrAcid »

I don't mean to sound ignorant, but on yaml.org web-site latest YAML specs date as of 2009-10-01...
And, doesn't it seem that learning and implementing YAML will require too much resources?
Not that I know how YAML actually works... :?

it's just that gettext format is not hard to implement, it's fast, reliable (as giants like Wordpress show us) and a breeze to translate!
There is almost -nothing- new for a translator to learn. There is -nothing- that will make a translator's job more difficult tahn it already is :)
They just open POEdit(a free program), load a file and translate. It also offers translation memory, fuzzy translations(the strings translator is unsure of), catalog updating from a source file.

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DavidIQ
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Re: Translations -- use GNU GetText please

Post by DavidIQ »

naderman wrote:At the same time David, the translators are discussing a YAML proposal which is quite different from gettext. Many of the concerns raised about YAML do not apply to gettext.
Yes...I realized this just now. I got thrown off because the reference topic here that was linked ended up being this topic. :| Gettext has been brought up now so let's see what sort of reception it gets.
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Re: Translations -- use GNU GetText please

Post by Qiaeru »

Translators and IST members have been invited to also participate in this topic. Feedbacks coming.

Peetra
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Re: Translations -- use GNU GetText please

Post by Peetra »

A smooth translation tool works as easy off-site in any basic editor as online. It is readable for the human eye. Starting a new package need no or little background knowledge about php. (That feature exists, I didn't know any php at all, when I took over the translation for the Swedish language package 3 years ago) Changing an existing package to a new system should need no special skills or technical knowledge. Doing lang packs for MODs doesn't acquire any special knowledge about translations. What else? Hmm.... If we would have an online tool it is just MUST to have the option to get a suggestion from google. :P The same as Diaspora use, but it of course must be usable as pure files as well. One sometimes need to see a lot of the text to keep it together and one need to do fast searches for strings and words with one's favourite tool like command line or FIND IN FILES in the favourite editor. Online tools can be limited or too complicated there? Something that I really appreciate with the arrays we got today is that when the English sentence such (first edition quite often does, actually), the actual string often gives me a hint and if it doesn't I can go look in the html-files for a better understanding and with those known I can look up the actual code in php, if it still is fuzzy.
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.
I do not see the real problem and what makes it so hard with the way we do it today. We have (at least had, Mael did a manual check on my last submit, ty M.) a script that checks for missing stuff and probably other stuff too(?), when we upload translations, so that eases it a bit.
DavidIQ wrote:YAML proposal which is quite different from gettext
Noone have actually explained what would the great thing with a change, no actual working method have been presented even as a thought. As far as the ordinary guy know, we could just be talking about a fancy way to rename ms.doc-files :roll: I would like to try the methods and see examples of files. I have installed POEdit and open a file from Wordpress and it seemed like a decent way working assuming I can switch between manually editing text files and using the machine. But I wonder how easy it is going to be for all translators that haven't the option to just try their luck getting a tool in Synaptic Package manager in (*)buntu...? All changes that I ever needed to do before this in WP-files I have done manually and it work fine as well.
I have questioned a translator for Diaspora, that use YAML-files a bit, but I didn't get a grip of how to handle manually text edits directly in files, nor I have any clue of have it have been thought that phpBB would use YAML, if there is any thoughts. Is there?

Most of all I would want a way to get all good already translated sentences into next version without going through all 73+ (or more?) old files string by string looking for what great new innovative ways the devs use to write exactly same stuff. With the Atom feed changes (not the one where Atom was introuduced, it was easy to do, but the next one) there where a quite small diff (40 lines maybe?). A lot of stuff where renamed like
  • FEED_NEW_FORUM --> NEW_FORUM_FEED
    NO_FEED was renamed to NO_FORUM_FEED
and string was moved around as well. Being confused over a few ittybitty changes like that makes me scared of how I can manage changing all old good translated strings from phpBB 3.x to 4.0. It would be in translators intrest that we could use as much of our old files in new versions or have a migrating tool 3.x --> 4.0, the translating work is such massive. I wasn't around when the RC translations for phpBB3 begun. Can someone please tell me how it was done that time as I've noticed that some of the translations and sentences are exactly the same in many languages.

I am proud to tell that the Swedish version of phpBB is probably the best one in the whole world and we would like to keep it that way, so please use exactly the same strings or give us a tool to migrate existing translations of today into phpBB of tomorrow, please.

A tool that would make this EN

Code: Select all

'BOARD_FOUNDER_ONLY'					=> 'Only Board Founders may access the Support Toolkit.',
WHITCH IS THIS SV

Code: Select all

'BOARD_FOUNDER_ONLY'				=> 'Endast forumets grundare har tillgång till Support Toolkit',
INTO FOLLOWING (I am using Symphony's example)

Code: Select all

// text will *always* print out in English
echo 'Only Board Founders may access the Support Toolkit';

// text can be translated into the end-user's language or default to English
echo $translator->trans('Endast forumets grundare har tillgång till Support Toolkit');
Cherrypie!!
// Peetra, maintainer of and translator for the Swedish language package.

DrAcid
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Re: Translations -- use GNU GetText please

Post by DrAcid »

Peetra wrote: I have installed POEdit and open a file from Wordpress and it seemed like a decent way working assuming I can switch between manually editing text files and using the machine. But I wonder how easy it is going to be for all translators that haven't the option to just try their luck getting a tool in Synaptic Package manager in (*)buntu...?
I'm glad You've liked PoEdit! :)
But I don't understand why You've indicated that it is only available for *buntus? ;) It works perfectly fine on both Windows and Mac... :geek:
Also, I think, there is a portable version(for flash drives) in the works too!

If You wonder what online tools are available and what they look like, You might would like to check out Transifex.net or Launchpad.net.
They offer Team creation and management, project versions, fuzzy translations(to be checked later), similar strings (it shows You the string that is similar to the current one)...
Also, Launchpad has a function that, when enabled, shows You the translation of this string from other languages you choose (e.g. If You know more than 1 lang, U can use it for reference)...
They let members of teams download the translation files and re-upload them later... Lotsa stuff :)

And the best thing - You don't have to worry about accidentally breaking the PHP code... I've done that once(in multiple places) and it took me days to find the 2 lost quotes... :|

Oh, and when a developer adds a new string to the lang file, the translation maintainer does not have to dance around the file looking for it, they just see it in "untranslated" list and translate it! 8-)


- Giorgi
// Ex-maintainer of Georgian Language Pack.
// Probably the one to revive, finish and polish the translation

P.S.(Oh, and there's Pootle, a php-based portal that can be installed on any server and may serve as online translation portal for gettext :!: )

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