Development:Translation 2.0

Note: This page is a work-in-progress. Feedback and suggested improvements are welcome. Please join the discussion on moodle.org or use the page comments.

This evolving page summarises proposals to change the translation process in Moodle 2.0 based on community suggestions in the discussion Translators heads up: proposals to change the Moodle translation process.

Petr's proposal

Store every lang string in one central database with as much info as possible
Keep the old rule that no string meaning may change
en_utf8 lang in main cvs is the master - it already has branches
Generate/commit lang cvs files directly from main database - do not allow translators to commit any more
Translators upload standard modified lang files - server sorts out the branches automatically (it learns everything from en packs) i.e. Translators just translate... and, from time to time, click a "Send lang package" button. That packages the whole moodledata/lang/xx_utf8 and sends it to moodle.org where it's analysed and split into n commits (each lang string to its branches)

Benefits:

100% backwards compatibility
Translation process does not need to change at all - file upload instead of commit only
Branching is transparent - we need to maintain it in en_utf8 pack
This would allow us to cleanup HEAD/lang/en_utf8/*
It allows completely new translation UIs and processes

Implementation: