Re: Easier translation interface is needed

[Federico Bruni <fede inventati org>]

Il giorno gio 4 lug 2019 alle 8:39, Claude Paroz <claude 2xlibre net> 
ha scritto:
> Le 03.07.19 à 15:02, Nikoloz Geldiashvili via gnome-i18n a écrit :
> >  For communities to complete translations to other languages more 
> > quickly
> >  and easily, it would be much more effective to have survey like web
> >  based (in browser) translating app, rather than file download and 
> > upload
> >  method. I mean interface, like Google's Crowdsource translation app 
> > has.
>
> Hi Nikoloz,
>
> This discussion comes regularly and in general the conclusions are 
> that
> both ways have pros and cons. So for the moment we will keep the 
> method
> by file, as it would be a huge work to convert to a Web-based platform
> while keeping all the customizations we have programmed during the 
> years
> for the GNOME translations.

Claude, there's no _user_ manual for Damned Lies, right?
I think it would be very useful, as some features are kind of hidden 
and I "discovered" them only when experienced translators explained 
them to me. For example, if I remember correctly:

- If you submit a PO file and the POT file has been updated since you 
downloaded the PO file, you'll see if your uploaded version is not 
complete (the statistics strings/fuzzy/untranslated close to the 
.merged.po file, see this¹) and you can download a file with the new 
strings merged in your last translation.
- If you work on a PO file from a release branch of a project, you can 
submit the same file also to other branches (such as master), then get 
a new file with the merged differences and work on the remaining 
strings for that branch. So there's no need to copy&paste if you want 
to manage translations of different branches. It's the same concept as 
above but in a different context.

The wiki says that Damned Lies "offers a review workflow with different 
roles (translator, reviewer, committer and administrator)". To me this 
is limited only to comments. There's no real review tool, as in Gitlab: 
I cannot comment the diff line by line.
Recently I made a detailed review in a comment and the translator was 
lost as he could not find some strings I was talking about. The same 
translator recently proposed to reviewers a good suggestion I've never 
thought before: instead of listing the changes in a comment, make the 
changes in the PO file and upload it, so the translator can see the 
differences in Damned Lies and use that file to decide what to accept 
or refuse. Much easier indeed.

So not only hidden features, you see, but also best workflows to be 
discussed and shared.


I'd like to contribute to a user manual or user wiki, especially if 
someone else more experienced than me can review and help.

¹ https://l10n.gnome.org/vertimus/fractal/master/po/it/