Re: New document required

[Telsa Gwynne <hobbit aloss ukuu org uk>]

On Mon, Aug 04, 2003 at 12:41:16PM +0100 or thereabouts, Dafydd Harries wrote:
> I have made some notes regarding translation, and so has Telsa. We
> haven't gotten round to putting them into a form we can present to
> translators. Telsa has rightly been saying that we should make a note of
> these things while they are still fresh in our memories!

Here you go. I was half-way through writing this when you replied.

 * Contact your KDE/OpenOffice/Mozilla other project counterparts
   if they exist. No point in duplicating work. No point in using
   different words in different projects for the same string.
   (We've had quite a process of discussion over this. We've had
   false starts. We've had to change words. They've had to change
   words. When I say 'we' and 'they', btw, I mean the projects.
   A lot of the contributors are the same people :))

 * If there are translations into your language for Windows and
   MacOS, be aware of them. Ask around people who use them. You
   may find people love them, or you may find they loathe them.

 * Get hold of the Gnome Glossary from the Gnome Docs Project
   Style Guide. Work out how you propose to translate every damn
   word in it. Try to do this completely if possible. You might
   well be unable to (we were stuck on antialiasing for weeks)
   but the more you do there, the more you'll get a feel for 
   problems. For example, I have seen packet/package/something
   else all translated by the same word in more than one language.
   configure/install/set up were another combination that gave us
   trouble.

 * We found it really helped to meet up in person where possible.
   We have never got all of us into one place at one time, but
   we've got a few. If you do this, we have learned now what 
   to set up in advance. (Get up-to-date cvs checkouts, get
   everything installed on test-box in advance, make sure everyone
   can see it, ensure all likely editors are installed, have some
   plan for the day, bring every dictionary you possess.. :)) 

 * This one is really important: 

   Get packages out as _soon as possible_ after you have translated
   a bit. After gtk is ideal. Rpms, debs, or just the po/mo files.
   Drop those in and suddenly your desktop is halfway there. This
   was great fun, seeing what a difference you could make. Also,
   it generated screenshots, which generated interest, which
   generated more translators. Daf's automatically updated po and
   mo file tarball has been a boon for us.

 * Use your desktop as much as possible in your new translation.
   You will find bugs easily when you see it all put together.

 * Create very simple instructions for other people to use those
   packages and play with a translated desktop. Try to get feedback.

 * Oh yes. You are your own users for the first few months.
   Your first "real user" (who hasn't been involved) is a cause
   for a party :)

 * If your language has an official or non-official body which
   'looks after' the language (I know many do), it's worth knowing
   their preferred translations for things. However, you have to
   decide whether you're going to follow it. (I know at least
   some don't.)
                                                                                
 * If you consider trying to drum up publicity ("New, a desktop
   in your own language!") and you haven't tried to publicise
   things before, don't be surprised if you have to send dozens
   and hundreds (literally) of letters. The KDE co-ordinator,
   Kevin Donnolly, sent 200 letters and press releases to bodies
   you might expect to have some interest. I have not heard of
   any replies yet.
                                                                                
 * Something we lack currently: someone (or a place) who
   knows things like the appropriate localisation of "The quick
   brown fox jumps.." (gnome-control-center, libgnomeui) and the
   letter frequency order (gok) for your language. We're at the
   stage of thinking of writing to Welsh-language printers to ask :)
   If you find such a person, treasure them. Of course, you can
   always run a competition for the best pangram for your language
   instead. :)
                                                                                
 * If you meet strings you can't translate: don't guess. Ask.
   _Most_ maintainers are very responsive to this kind of thing.
   (I believe we're still waiting for a reply from one, but we've
   had great explanations from some others.)

 * File bugs about tricky strings. It'll help everyone who comes
   after. 
                                                                                
 * Don't get behind on the branch. It might seem hassle to spend what
   an extra five minutes checking something in on the branch after
   you've done HEAD. But you wait until you have 12 or 20 translations
   all of which need to go onto the branch, and you'll wish you'd
   done each as they came in. Guess how I know :/
                                                                                
 * Make editor macros for as much grunt work as possible. Things
   like "Po-Last-Updated" or po/Changelog "Updated xx translation".
   (If anyone has a quick macro or script for "find msgids with
   _ marks which have no _ marks in the corresponding msgstr" as
   someone recently asked, please speak up!) You will be typing
   the same thing in Changelogs and commit messages again and again.
   Automate, automate, automate. Even if it's just /tmp/po-changelog
   with the date updated by cron.
                                                                                
 * Some of your group may work on Windows or on Unix with editors
   which don't like your locale. If there are problems editing
   (can't get accents in, special character does not exist), work
   out a convenient shorthand for saying "someone fix this" which
   you use consistently. We have "EFAILLE"s, "TRWSIO"s, "FIXME"s
   and goodness knows what coming out of our ears because we didn't
   have a standard way at first.
                                                                                
 * po files have their own quirks:
                                                                                
     - don't put extra " marks in. msgfmt doesn't like it.
     - don't put extra [ marks followed by an alphabetical character
     in. I don't quite understand this, but msgfmt doesn't like it.
     - You need to count up \ns and put the right number in. If you
     don't, msgfmt doesn't like it.
     - You need to put them in the right places too, or.. (guess what)
                                                   
 * You may also have to dive into (n)gettext arcana if yours is a
   language which wants different words for different forms of
   plurals. You don't need everyone on the team to do this, but you
   do need at least one (and ideally more to avoid bottlenecks) person
   to be able to handle this, and they should be the one with CVS
   access.
                             
 * gnome-i18n is not optional :)
                                                                                
 * msgid "translator_credits" is for your name(s). Whee. Well, it
   is for the name of the translator who did the work. Credit everything
   correctly. Keep a list of who worked on what from the very start
   and get that information into the files. Then the maintainers of
   the packages will see that. Everyone here will recall how cool
   it was to see their name appear in release notes or in credits
   which are actually on the desktop and getting shipped to thousands
   of people. I still remember the first time I was in a Changelog
   and the first time my name appeared somewhere. I can't be the
   only one. 

> Did I just volunteer to do something?

Whoops :) 

Telsa