Menu

An easier way to contribute translations

Greg Roach
2010-03-26
2013-05-29
  • Greg Roach

    Greg Roach - 2010-03-26

    Hello Translators.

    Last month PhpGedView split into two projects.  The new project is
    called webtrees, and many of the old PhpGedView developers are now
    working on it.

    Our first task has been to rewrite PGV's translation system to use the
    open-source "gettext" system.  This gives very good support for

    1) plurals - some languages have 2, 3 or more plural forms.

    2) context - "login" (verb or noun?), "witness" (male or female)
    "uncle" (mother's brother or father's sister's husband?).

    3) pages with both left-to-right and right-to-left text.

    This task is almost complete, and we now have an on-line collaborative
    system for entering and updating translations.  It is very fast/easy
    to use, and if you want to contribute to it, your translations will be
    shared amongst many open source projects.

    There is no need to upload/download files or install software.  It is
    all done using a web site, and you can translate as little or as much
    as you want.  (It is ideal for using in your coffee break at the
    office!)

    The site is https://translations.launchpad.net/webtrees/ and you will
    need to register with launchpad first. (Lauchpad is like sourceforge,
    a hosting platform for open-source software.)

    Greg Roach, aka fisharebest

    PS: PGV Developers: it will be possible (with the help of a simple
    script) to convert these gettext files back into PHP arrays, to allow
    them to be merged into PGV.  This is the reverse process that we used
    to initially populate our gettext files.  If you are interested, I'll
    be very happy to explain the process.  It is in everybody's interests
    to share the translations as widely as possible.

     
  • Julio Sánchez Fernández

    Funny you mention that, I have been doing that since I started playing with PGV, I manage my translation as a set of po files.  I wrote my own scripts for that.  I did it just so that I could use emacs po-mode, that I don't think I would ever give up for anything as a tool for translating software.

     
  • Wes Groleau

    Wes Groleau - 2010-03-27

    Are you interested in sharing those scripts?

     
  • Julio Sánchez Fernández

    Sure, it is in patch 2977867, I never did this because I always thought it as a personal perversion better to keep private.

    The approach I took here is not necessarily the best.  It works rather well with Emacs po-mode, but other tools do not handle very well working will several translations at the same time (you will need it with this because the msgid does not contain the English text).

    An alternative would be to have the English text in the msgid and have the translation array key as a msgctxt, but I did not pursue that route (it would have interesting advantages, since msgmerge would be able to help translating untranslated or modified texts).

     
  • Wes Groleau

    Wes Groleau - 2010-04-01

    You consider emacs a perversion?

    Anyway, thanks for the scripts.  I'll use them to put PGV in na'vi and Klingon.  (NOT!)

     

Log in to post a comment.