Development:Languages: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 22:08, 20 November 2009

This is an initial proposal of changes to the language strings processing in Moodle.

String files are not branched. We must keep all strings from all branches in place for backwards compatibility and we are unable to easily clean up language packs. Some say the branching and merging is too big toast for our translators.
Plural forms. We are unable to handle plurals at all. For example, handling plural forms in gettext is traditional, well tested and robust way. MDL-12433 by Sam Marshal shows alternative approach based on logical expressions.
Strings can't be modified. It is difficult to notify translators that some string was modified (expanded, fixed, changed). The current work around it the policy of adding another string with the same suffixed name (like 'license2'). Would be nice if such strings were tagged/highlighted in the translation UI.
We do not use standard formats. Translators can't use specialized tools for translation (PO/gettext editors, community translation portals). Also, I am not aware of any benchmarking showing the performance differences between out native $string[] format compared to, for example, standard .po format.
More syntax checks are required so the translators do not brake Moodle functionality (see MDL-12433)

Do not reinvent the wheel. Keep "do one thing and do it well" principle. Keep it simple and stupid.
...

This is the list of projects, resources and tools being explored

Great CPAN article about software localization
XLIFF - XML Localization Interchange File Format
Virtaal - promising, we could have XLIFF <-> .php conversion
Launchpad - translation portal used by Ubuntu and many other projects. Would require BSD licensing, therefore IMO not suitable as we could not import our current GPL'ed translation. Seems to be pretty slow during the process.
[Plural forms in gettext
Zend_Translate reference guide
MDL-12433 - Sam Marshal's proposal

@@ Line 36: / Line 36: @@
 This is the list of projects, resources and tools being explored
-* http://search.cpan.org/~ferreira/Locale-Maketext-1.13_82/lib/Locale/Maketext/TPJ13.pod I great article about this problem.
+* [http://search.cpan.org/~ferreira/Locale-Maketext-1.13_82/lib/Locale/Maketext/TPJ13.pod Great CPAN article about software localization]
 * [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XLIFF XLIFF] - XML Localization Interchange File Format
 * [http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/virtaal/index Virtaal] - promising, we could have XLIFF <-> .php conversion
 * [http://launchpad.net/+tour/translation Launchpad] - translation portal used by Ubuntu and many other projects. Would require BSD licensing, therefore IMO not suitable as we could not import our current GPL'ed translation. Seems to be pretty slow during the process.
-* [http://search.cpan.org/~ferreira/Locale-Maketext-1.13_82/lib/Locale/Maketext/TPJ13.pod CPAN article about software localization]
+* [[http://www.gnu.org/software/hello/manual/gettext/Plural-forms.html Plural forms in gettext]
 * [http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zend.translate.html Zend_Translate reference guide]
+* MDL-12433 - Sam Marshal's proposal
 == Proposal ==