G'day everyone
This is the second general newsletter to tell you how the Decathlon
project is progressing. Thank you to all the translators who have
participated in this project so far. Also a big thank you to people who
are not translators but mailed us to let us know that they support the
ideals and that they'll tell others about it.
Feel free to share this e-mail with people who may be interested.
Invite your friends or colleagues to join this low-volume announcement
mailing list about the Decathlon project. And encourage anyone to help
translate software into their language.
* Project of the month: Art of Illusion
Although anyone may at any time translate any of the projects we're
involved with, we try to focus on one project every month. This month
I'd like to ask you to help translate Art of Illusion.
If at first the thought of translating a graphics animator does not
appeal to you, think again. What makes Art of Illusion an ideal project
for translation, is its excellent user manuals, tutorials and very
active user forums. In fact, most items in the translation will be
covered somewhere in the user manual. This should make translating Art
of Illusion very easy, even if you're unfamiliar with the subject.
Visit the page for Art of Illusion on the Decathlon wiki:
http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/decathlon/art_of_illusion
Make a point of visiting the various forums and downloading some of the
reference materials. Or, if you don't want to download stuff, you can
search most of the user manuals online using our customised Google search:
http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=003167205026530159007%3Azwksitekrbm
Working alone is no fun, and with Pootle it is possible to work in a
group. Remember, if 5 friends translate 50 words a day, then that is
5000 words by the end of the month. That is, a complete graphics
animator used by professionals, in your language, in just one month.
* What is the reason for Decathlon?
I think it is important to realise what prompted us to start the
Decathlon project.
Our main concern was that knowledge is lost when translators do not move
from one software project to another. It seems a shame that new
volunteers struggle with the same problems more experienced colleagues
have already overcome. For this reason we want to help create language
teams that work across many translation projects.
When volunteers translate just one program, the translation skills and
knowledge they have gained are lost to other software projects. But
when translators form language communities and share their experiences
with each other, progress happens faster.
So the purpose of our Pootle server is not to restrict translators to
one translation project, but to help them translate many projects in a
unified environment. In fact, we encourage translators who participate
in Decathlon, to also get involved in other projects. Better still, we
hope translators would join each other, end their isolation, and create
thriving language communities.
Statistics can be impressive, and the best way to boost the Decathlon's
statistics would be to guard "our" translators jealously, but that would
also mean missing the point of the Decathlon entirely.
So, our message is: Use what the Decathlon has to offer, to help create
or help improve a community of opensource software translators in your
language.
* What's on at Pootle.Locamotion.org?
There are currently twelve projects hosted on pootle.locamotion.org, of
which seven are Decathlon projects. In some of the Decathlon projects,
we have permission to translate only into new languages, and in some of
them the translation into larger languages are already finished. But
there is plenty of opportunities for translation left.
The Decathlon projects are: Art of Illusion (lots of opportunities
here), FileZilla (opportunities for minority languages), FreeMind (quite
a few opportunities for most languages), Speedcrunch (a new project that
has joined only recently), TuxGuitar (this program still needs
translators in almost all languages), Tux Paint (if your language is
already taken, encourage the existing translator to join us), and VLC
(spaces left mostly for minority languages only).
Remember, just because your language isn't listed on our Pootle server,
doesn't mean that we don't want or need that language. We add languages
to Pootle only when we receive interest from volunteers in those
languages. So please e-mail us if you want to translate into a language
that is not yet listed.
If you haven't done so already, I encourage you to start translating. In
fact, get a team of friends/colleagues and then all translate together.
Our web-based translation system is ideal for groups of translators
working independent from each other on a single project.
* A quick overview on how to translate
Remember, if you want to participate in translating, you need to
register a user account at our Pootle server, and once the account has
been activated (usually automatically via e-mail), you can start
translating. Here is the procedure in a nutshell:
1. Register here:
http://pootle.locamotion.org/register.html
and wait for the activation e-mail.
2. Read here (for information about Art of Illusion as well as useful
resources
you can use):
http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/decathlon/aoi
3. Then log in to Pootle:
http://pootle.locamotion.org/login.html
4. And go the FreeMind page for your language on Pootle:
http://pootle.locamotion.org/xh/aoi/ (example for Xhosa)
5. Click "Show Editing Functions" (this is very important)
6. Click "Quick Translate" or "Translate All" and start translating!
I look forward to your mails. Remember to bug me with any questions you
may have. And feel free to forward this e-mail to anyone you think may
be interested.
Good luck!
Samuel Murray
Decathlon project leader
|
