Audacity

On 12/2/05, Dominic Mazzoni wrote:

> 1. When a translation has been updated, put it on the web so that
> people can download it, along with instructions (in that language)
> for how to install it.

Judging by my experience we will have gazillions of users being not
able to find it.

> 2. Release new "language packs" regularly - every month, for
> example.  The language pack would include a Windows installer that
> replaces your current translations in an existing Audacity install...

Not the best solution too, see the commentary for 4th possible solution.

> 3. Have Audacity download the latest translations from the Internet.
> Would most users like this, or would it be a pain for most?

1. Not all of users have direct access to Internet.
2. Some of them have, but they are sitting behind firewall or a proxy,
so that in one case you can't do anything to help them, and in the
second  you will have to implement proxy settings for Audacity.

> 4. Independent of the other choices, what would people think about
> separating the languages by geography?  For example, "Western
> Europe", "Eastern Europe", "Americas", and "Asia"?

How would it help? E.g. If I live in Russia, which is partly Eastern
Europe and partly Asia, I don't need neither all of eastern european
translations, nor all of asian translations. Usually users want either
English or their mother language translation. There are some cases
when two mother languages should be present, e.g. Czech and Slovak
might be needed to be installed at the same time, but it varies from
place to place and isn't common practice at all.

I suggest going a route similar to the one of Mozilla Firefox - detect
possible native language of a user from his IP and suggest a language
pack (e.g. "fr.zip") with a link to more translations along regular
".exe" or ".tar.bz2" or ".dmg" (read UserAgent and detect possible
OS).

> 6. How many of you would be willing to help commit new translations
> to CVS (requires learning CVS and the details of CVS on SourceForge)?

Not applicable here ;)

Alexandre

What's wrong with a deadline, and then update every third month?
/Lars
Sweden

At 03:01 2005-12-02 -0800, you wrote:
>Translators,

On Dec 2, 2005, at 4:28 AM, Lars Carlsson wrote:
> What's wrong with a deadline, and then update every third month?

Three issues:

1. Three months is a long time to wait if you finish the translation  
the day after the deadline.

2. That still means that most users get all 25 languages!

3. As the number of languages grows, the amount of time Matt and I  
spend on translations for each release grows.  I'm looking for ways  
to let translators do more incremental updates themselves, getting  
translations directly to users, without having to wait for us.

- Dominic

> /Lars
> Sweden
>
> At 03:01 2005-12-02 -0800, you wrote:
>
>> Translators,
>>
>
>
>
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On Dec 2, 2005, at 3:23 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
>> 4. Independent of the other choices, what would people think about
>> separating the languages by geography?  For example, "Western
>> Europe", "Eastern Europe", "Americas", and "Asia"?
>
> How would it help? E.g. If I live in Russia, which is partly Eastern
> Europe and partly Asia, I don't need neither all of eastern european
> translations, nor all of asian translations. Usually users want either
> English or their mother language translation. There are some cases
> when two mother languages should be present, e.g. Czech and Slovak
> might be needed to be installed at the same time, but it varies from
> place to place and isn't common practice at all.

Right now everybody gets 25 languages whether you like it or not.

Having 25 different versions of Audacity would be a logistical  
nightmare because of how much work it takes to release each file on  
SourceForge.

But we might be able to come up with something with 4-5 different  
language versions.

> I suggest going a route similar to the one of Mozilla Firefox - detect
> possible native language of a user from his IP and suggest a language
> pack (e.g. "fr.zip") with a link to more translations along regular
> ".exe" or ".tar.bz2" or ".dmg" (read UserAgent and detect possible
> OS).

The website already has a guess as to the OS and language by the time  
they click the download link.  So that's no problem.

The problem is, how do we produce 25 versions of Audacity without  
going crazy?  Firefox has apparently come up with an automated system  
to generate installers...since there's no equivalent of a SF compile  
farm for Windows, I'm not sure how we'd do that.  Seriously, if you  
know of any site that would provide a Windows box and shell access  
that would enable us to create new Windows builds from the command- 
line, that would be awesome.

- Dominic

On 12/2/05, Dominic Mazzoni <dominic@...> wrote:
>
> On Dec 2, 2005, at 3:23 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
> >> 4. Independent of the other choices, what would people think about
> >> separating the languages by geography?  For example, "Western
> >> Europe", "Eastern Europe", "Americas", and "Asia"?
> >
> > How would it help? E.g. If I live in Russia, which is partly Eastern
> > Europe and partly Asia, I don't need neither all of eastern european
> > translations, nor all of asian translations. Usually users want either
> > English or their mother language translation. There are some cases
> > when two mother languages should be present, e.g. Czech and Slovak
> > might be needed to be installed at the same time, but it varies from
> > place to place and isn't common practice at all.
>
> Right now everybody gets 25 languages whether you like it or not.
>
> Having 25 different versions of Audacity would be a logistical
> nightmare because of how much work it takes to release each file on
> SourceForge.

Did I wrute something about separate build of Audacity with each
laguage? :) I believe I wrote about language packs :)

> > I suggest going a route similar to the one of Mozilla Firefox - detect
> > possible native language of a user from his IP and suggest a language
> > pack (e.g. "fr.zip") with a link to more translations along regular
> > ".exe" or ".tar.bz2" or ".dmg" (read UserAgent and detect possible
> > OS).
>
> The website already has a guess as to the OS and language by the time
> they click the download link.  So that's no problem.

Good :)

> The problem is, how do we produce 25 versions of Audacity without
> going crazy?  Firefox has apparently come up with an automated system
> to generate installers...since there's no equivalent of a SF compile
> farm for Windows, I'm not sure how we'd do that.  Seriously, if you
> know of any site that would provide a Windows box and shell access
> that would enable us to create new Windows builds from the command-
> line, that would be awesome.

See above :)

Alexandre

On Dec 2, 2005, at 5:27 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
>> Right now everybody gets 25 languages whether you like it or not.
>>
>> Having 25 different versions of Audacity would be a logistical
>> nightmare because of how much work it takes to release each file on
>> SourceForge.
>>
>
> Did I wrute something about separate build of Audacity with each
> laguage? :) I believe I wrote about language packs :)

Hmmm, I thought that language packs normally came with multiple  
languages, by geographic region.  You know, like the Western European  
language pack, etc.

>> The problem is, how do we produce 25 versions of Audacity without
>> going crazy?  Firefox has apparently come up with an automated system
>> to generate installers...since there's no equivalent of a SF compile
>> farm for Windows, I'm not sure how we'd do that.  Seriously, if you
>> know of any site that would provide a Windows box and shell access
>> that would enable us to create new Windows builds from the command-
>> line, that would be awesome.
>>
>
> See above :)

Say we had a language pack.  Ignore the issue of whether we have 25  
language packs or 5 for the moment.  Either way, you're envisioning a  
file that's a separate download from the program.  OK - how are users  
supposed to install it?  I'm thinking mostly of Windows users here;  
they're the majority.  It seems to me that either we have an  
installer program capable of automatically putting the language pack  
in the correct directory, or else we spend hours and hours helping  
users figure out where to put it on the help forums.  Right now we  
get 3-4 questions on how to install LAME every week, and that doesn't  
even matter where you put it!

I think the best solution would be if there was an easy way to  
automatically create Windows installers from a shell script.  I  
wonder if Inno Setup could be used to create an installer for each  
language pack?  Then, if we just had a Windows box we could log into  
remotely so that any developer could do it, we'd be set.  Or maybe I  
should just buy Virtual PC for my Mac, who knows.

- Dominic

Dominic Mazzoni wrote:

> I think the best solution would be if there was an easy way to
> automatically create Windows installers from a shell script.

In a previous job I used Make (via Cygwin) and the Inno Setup
command-line compiler to automatically build Windows installers.  This
is actually pretty easy to set up for someone with access to a Windows
development box.

About translations;

> 1. When a translation has been updated, put it on the web so that  peop=
le=20
> can download it, along with instructions (in that language)  for how to=
=20
> install it.

Could work, but 90% of the users won=B4t be able to understand those=20
instructions and we could end with a lot of users in our Fora (or foruns?=
)=20
asking for help, which wuould increase our job in lieu of minimizing it..=
.

> 2. Release new "language packs" regularly - every month, for  example.=20
> The language pack would include a Windows installer that  replaces your=
=20
> current translations in an existing Audacity install...
>
> 3. Have Audacity download the latest translations from the Internet.=20
> Would most users like this, or would it be a pain for most?

I vote for the internet engine. As long as it remains well explained -=20
*really* well, users won't refuse the editor to connect to the internet a=
nd=20
update installed translations. It would be great if we have an option to=20
disable this function, and would be best if, instead of downloading a ful=
l=20
new language file by itself, the engine opens a window saying "there's a =
new=20
translation", and the option to the user to download or just ignore it.

> 4. Independent of the other choices, what would people think about=20
> separating the languages by geography?

That's great too. But it would increase our load of work, since we will h=
ave=20
about 6 "audacitys" to work with.

What about something like that:

You download the program in english only. Than, when you install it in yo=
ur=20
system, the installer asks you about what language (or languages) would y=
ou=20
want to use the editor.

After the installation is done, the installer says it will download the=20
selected languages updated from the internet.

That way, the installation file is reduced and we ensure that the users w=
ill=20
aways have the latest language version.

> 6. How many of you would be willing to help commit new translations  to=
=20
> CVS (requires learning CVS and the details of CVS on SourceForge)?

I've tried! And tried again real hard. And again harder. And I *never* co=
uld=20
make that CVS stuff work.  It just doesn't. The authentication method is =
a=20
mess, Sourceforge instructions are completely greek to almost any user in=
=20
this world, and the 'easy step by step tutorial' leads you to nowhere.

No way, I gave up CVS.

The only way to make me (and, probably most of us) upload directly to thi=
s=20
CVS thing is to build a web interface that let us do it. A lot of work, I=
=20
guess, but if you decide that it is worth...

Basically, my opinion is that we should divide the audacity editor in two=
,=20
one part is the program it self and the other is language file(or files).

Making the program download the newest lang file from the internet, we co=
uld=20
have an 'universal' installation and a localized user interface.

Cleber=20