Re: String strike force / tool?

[F Wolff <friedel translate org za>]

Op Wo, 2009-08-26 om 23:02 +0100 skryf Bruce Cowan:
> I've noticed that one of the main purposes of the en_GB team is to fix
> the grammar and spelling of the original strings. However, most of the
> work of the team seems to be done after string freeze, when the strings
> can't be changed (easily). Of course, I could have started earlier, but
> I didn't for some reason.
> 
> Anyway, I thought that a sort of "string strike force" may be a good
> idea. Essentially it would audit strings while they can still be fixed.
> 
> The en_GB team could take this on itself, but it's probably a bit
> understaffed.

Whenever I translate, I usually keep a new bug report open where I try
to politely explain things that make it hard for me or any errors I see.
There aren't usually much wrong, probably thanks to previous efforts to
improve the source text. In fact, I think the last few modules I had
didn't necessitate a bug report at all.

This is almost always for the benefit of translators coming after the
one who reports the bug, but this is a way in which we can help each
other. The issue is of course that we need more work before string
freeze.

Another question I have in this area:

Which aspects of proofreading can we automate?  The translate project
will start with a tool that can review source strings within the next
few months. Something with the inspiration of pofilter, but obviously
working differently. Which features can we automatically check for?
Spell checking comes to mind, valid XML - things like that.  If people
can come up with ideas, we can hopefully empower developers (and
translators) to at least fix the easy things before we start using human
time for review. I'll appreciate some ideas / comments.

This together with Claude's proposal will help quite a bit I think.

Friedel

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