Re: Gnome 2.0 Localization for Solaris

[Kenneth Rohde Christiansen <kenneth diku dk>]

On 2002.03.20 19:32 Damien Donlon wrote:
> 
> Hi All,
> Myself and a few others are working out the details of
> the localization plan for Gnome 2.0 on Solaris. Currently
> the plan is to do translation for all software to be included
> in the Gnome 2.0 Solaris release which has not already been
> completed by other members of the community. We will also
> be doing translation for the documentation and help content
> being provided by Sun. So far, the language list is as follows :

Nice!


> We are investigating the possibility of doing some additional
> languages but these haven't been confirmed yet. All translations will
> eventually go back into the community CVS tree.

I would vote for Danish as we are pretty well supported already with 
exception
of documentation.

> We have a number  of issues which I'd be _very_ grateful to get input
> & feedback on. They are :
> 
> - Given the large amount of translation involved, how do you think
>   we ought to break this up? If we take everything at once and the
>   rest of the community continues doing translations are we
>   going to come unstuck when we attempt to merge our translations
> back?

I think you should take contact with the translation teams and try to 
get your work back in CVS as quickly as possible, to avoid duplication 
of efford

>   I know we ought not but want to avoid as much as possible
>   duplication of work between our translation teams and other members
>   of the community.

hmm, I should read before I start replying :)

>   We are thinking about taking it in chunks e.g 6/7 CVS modules at
>   a time thereby reducing the incidence of this happening by having
>   a quicker translation turnaround. What do you think of this approach

Always mail the translation teams to let them know what you are doing, 
and mail all the translations to their mailing list for review! We do 
that for the Danish team, and the Swedish team do something just like 
that

> 
>   as opposed to just taking the lot at once? Would community CVS
> tagging
>   before our translation be useful?
> 
> - Are all modules now configured correctly to use xml-i18n-tools?
>   Can we rely on "xml-i18n-update --pot" as capturing all localizable
>   content within software, .desktop AND .xml files in the community
> CVS
>   tree or have some CVS modules yet to be configured to use this
> mechanism?
>   If so, which modules are not yet configured?

xml-i18-tools is dead. Use intltool please! If you still have issues 
please mail me.

If I want to update the danish da.po file I will run 'intltool-update 
da'

> 
> 
> - So far we are aware of the need to add translations to .po, .desktop
> and
>  .xml files. Is there translatable content in other files? Someone
> mentioned
>   .server files as containing translatable content. What are they?
>   Are there others?

Never translate these files directly! intltool-update does everything 
for you!!!

> 
> - Some .po files are not yet UTF-8 encoded. If we were to develop
>   a mechanism for checking and converting message files to UTF-8 are
> we
>   free to do so or would this have 'unforeseen' detrimental
> side-effects?

There should also be something in intltool for this 
'intltool-unicodify'. Please report problems that you encounter.

> 
Kenneth