[Fedora-trans-list] Re: new mailing lists for translators

[Sarah Wang]

Martin Mewes wrote:
> Hi Sarah,
> 
> finally subsciption to the list needed to be nodded by the Moderator. 
> Uhh, this list seems to be very secure :-)
> 
> Am Donnerstag, 11. Dezember 2003 02:53 schrieb Sarah Wang:
> 
> 
>>>I recently signed up as a translator, but I do not get any info
>>>somewhere on how to start or what needs to be translated or
>>>anything else like this.
>>
>>I totally agree with you about the lack of instructions/procedures
>>in regard to translation. The main webpage for Fedora Translation
>>Project (http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/translations/) is quite
>>bare.  I'm working with the webpage maintainer to try to get more
>>info on the website at the moment. Please bear with me :)
> 
> 
> The question is. How can we help you out of this situation?
> Is there anything in order what we (or at least I) could do?
> 

Good call! I'd like to know what information people would like to see on 
this website first, and also welcome suggestions of content 
layout/organizations.

> 
>>>Translators are redirected to fedora-devel-list or
>>>fedora-docs-list which I signed up both.
>>
>>Well, in the future, we are going to use fedora-trans-list mainly
>>to post any instructions, information and discussions.
> 
> 
> Yes, I want to translate and not to documentate stuff.
> Contents of HOWTOs and Documentation should not be part of this list, 
> but technical advisories on what techniques should be used.
> 
> As Webmin/Usermin-WTCO I know what you are talking about.
> The question is/was always regarding the use of which HTML-Entities 
> should be used based on HTML 3.2 or HTML 4.0 or use of ä or 
> better &#ddd; stuff and so forth.
> 
> The only goal was trying to speed up the process of translating the 
> software with user contributed shell- or perl-scripts, how to package 
> translation files and finally upload them to the upstream (/me) who 
> after QA was done forwared all data once a week to the maintainer of 
> the complete software himself.

The main part of software translation process is already automated. The 
pot files are generated by gettext tools and put into cvs for checkout; 
the po files are automatically updated whenever pot file is updated; 
everyone who has a cvs account will be able to commit the translation 
(althought this procedure needs to be fine tuned); the finished 
translation files will be automatically integrated into the software 
packages.

I believe our challenge is to find the most efficient procedure to 
coordinate the translation as well as maintain the consistency and 
reusability of the existing translation.

> 
> It resulted now in a weekly FAQ as there is no room for discussion 
> anymore, because problems seem to be solved if no other "weired" 
> languages like /kisuaheli/ ;-)
> 
> 

FAQ is necessary in the beginning. Anyone would like to volunteer to get 
the FAQ together. Maybe we can put that on the project website, so this 
mailing list can be used for other discussions.

>>>All I found was:
>>>
>>>http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/documentation-guide/
>>>
>>>but does this belong to translators to or just to writers of
>>>documentation?
>>
>>That's for the writers of documentation. However, we still can
>>translate it if the community feel it's valuable. Right now, we are
>>trying to set up seperate CVS repository to store documenatation
>>translations.
> 
> 
> To get more folks in here it needs to be more publizised (correct 
> spelling?). And to get more as well, the Main-WebPage needs to be 
> available in different languages as well as a start point.
> I am ready to help thing put to german if needed.

Totally agree with you there. I'm working with Paul Gampe to get the 
website content into cvs, so everyone will be able to check out and 
translate the module therefore having localized project interface. I 
welcome any suggestions.

> 
> On the other hand I see that if some cannot read/understand the 
> english original, how can he/she be able to translate things from 
> english to ... :-)
> 
> [What is po?]
> 
>>"po" file is normally generated by GNU gettext tool. It contains
>>original msg and translated msg pairs. It's used very commonly for
>>software interfaces. You will noticed that all software
>>translations are in po file format.
>>
>>The advantage of po format is its maintainability. It can be easily
>>updated and merged using the existing gettext tools.
> 
> 
> So how about a FAQ on HOWTO work with po ( at least for folks like me) 
> as a start :-)

That is certainly a good starting point :)
Any volunteers?

> 
> Freundliche Grüsse
> Kind regards
> 
> Martin Mewes