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List:       kde-i18n-doc
Subject:    Kartouche (a possible translation aid) - request for feedback
From:       Steffan Donnelly <steff () dotmon ! com>
Date:       2003-02-20 14:52:14
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While working on the translation of KDE into Welsh, we began to think that it 
would be nice if we could use the Web to give other people an easy way to 
provide input into the process.  There are many advantages to this, and after 
some work we have put together an application (Kartouche) that seems to meet 
most of the initial requirements.  The purpose of this posting is to ask for 
feedback on the idea and the implementation, in the hope that Kartouche might 
prove useful to other translation teams (and indeed in speeding the 
translation of other open-source apps).  I understand from Thomas that the 
Zambian and Italian teams may have done work or be working on something 
similar, and it would make sense to compare notes and build a really 
effective distributed translation aid.

Kartouche uses PHP to load the pot files into a MySQL database (one file to a 
table), and then provides a front-end for people to add suggested 
translations, and a back-end for the translation co-ordinator to accept or 
reject those suggestions.  More information is at:
http://www.kyfieithu.co.uk/kartouche/aboutkart/index.php
(The Kyfieithu (cyfieithu=translate in Welsh) site is not really "live" yet, 
but (if all goes well!) will be so on 1 March.  As you can 
see, we are planning a "translation campaign", which will not only expand the 
number of translators (we hope!), but will also raise awareness of GNU/Linux 
and KDE in Wales).

The Kartouche user interface is at 
http://www.kyfieithu.co.uk/kartouche/index.php.  Suggested translations can 
be offered by using the "Start translating" link.  The files (tables) 
available for translation are the ones earlier suggested as essential for 
a Welsh version - the planned translation campaign would start with those.  
(Note that the versions are a bit old - we will need to refresh them from a 
more recent CVS download before we go live.)

The admin interface is at 
http://www.kyfieithu.co.uk/kartouche/gwein/index.php, and is currently not 
protected in any way (although it will be!).  Suggested translations can be 
moved over to become final translations by using the "Accept suggestions" 
link.  Please note that the Export and Import links do not work on the Web as 
yet - they are intended to be used on the co-ordinator's local copy of 
Kartouche.  

With both user and admin interfaces, feel free to enter suggestions (no 
profanities please!) and commit them, since the site is currently under test.

The key issue, of course, is whether our import/export mechanisms will give 
acceptable po files.  We have done a lot of work on this, comparing the 
originals and the Kartouche exports, and we believe that the answer is yes, 
but unfortunately we are not experts in this aspect of the translation 
process, having never committed anything to CVS!  I attach as a sample the 
file exported from the kdesdk___desktop_kdesdk table on the website, and 
would be grateful for comments on whether it "looks" OK.  The only file that 
seems not to import properly is timezones.pot, and this is because it rather 
sneakily contains no comments, unlike all the others ... :-)  We are still 
thinking about the easiest way around this (the absolutely easiest way would 
be to add a # line before each msgid line in CVS ...).  I recognise that much 
more testing would need to be done to ensure that the import/export filters 
are effective.  

Some figures:
- the 550 non-docs pot files get imported into the db in about 1min 40 secs;
- kdelibs gets imported in around 10 secs.

We are referring to the current version of Kartouche as 0.0.1alpha, which 
means that although it is stable and seems to work OK, it could do with some 
code-cleanup, a review of security, etc.  However, we plan to use it on 
Kyfieithu to get real-world information on its robustness - performance there 
will be useful in determining how Kartouche needs to be improved, and even if 
we end up copying everything by hand into KBabel, Kyfieithu/Kartouche will 
have served its purpose in raising awareness of open-source in Wales.  We are 
working to get the files and installation notes packaged as a downloadable, 
and this should be ready by the weekend.  Once that is available, it should 
be possible for more people to test it in the comfort of their own PCs.

Best wishes

Kevin Donnelly

["desktop_kdesdk.po" (application/x-gettext)]

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