[PD] more fun with translations

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On 12/27/2012 04:39 PM, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans at at.or.at>
>> To: Jonathan Wilkes <jancsika at yahoo.com>
>> Cc: "pd-list at iem.at list" <pd-list at iem.at>
>> Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2012 3:33 PM
>> Subject: Re: [PD] more fun with translations
>>
>>
>> On Dec 27, 2012, at 3:17 PM, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
>>
>>>  ----- Original Message -----
>>>
>>>>  From: Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans at at.or.at>
>>>>  To: Jonathan Wilkes <jancsika at yahoo.com>
>>>>  Cc: "pd-list at iem.at list" <pd-list at iem.at>
>>>>  Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2012 8:54 PM
>>>>  Subject: Re: [PD] more fun with translations
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  On Dec 26, 2012, at 3:27 PM, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>  ----- Original Message -----
>>>>>>  From: Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans at at.or.at>
>>>>>>  To: "pd-list at iem.at list" <pd-list at iem.at>
>>>>>>  Cc: 
>>>>>>  Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2012 2:05 PM
>>>>>>  Subject: [PD] more fun with translations
>>>
>>>  [...]
>>>
>>>>>  Is it possible to translate comments of the help patches in 
>> 5.reference in 
>>>>  a similar
>>>>>  manner?
>>>>
>>>>  Not currently, but that is something I think we can do.  I guess the 
>> trickiest 
>>>>  part is the file format.  I suppose there could be a .po file 
>>>>  per-language-per-patch.  I'd rather see all the translations 
>> embedded into 
>>>>  the patch.
>>>
>>>  Just made the search-plugin keywords translatable. There's  a [_ 
>> "name"] for
>>>  the keyword, then a "keyword" which is not translated. Seems to 
>> work fine.
>>>
>>>  But again, notice that this just kicks the ball down the field for the
>>>  non-English-speaking user.  Sure, they can get a list of included 
>> "bandlimited"
>>>  objects, but they all have english descriptions, patches, and readmes (if 
>> they
>>>  have them at all).
>>>
>>>  -Jonathan
>>
>> Definitely true.  But this is one step that needs to happen, so its definitely 
>> not wasted effort at all.  Plus someone now can put [pd META] tags into their 
>> tutorials in whatever language, like Porres' portuguese tutorials, and they 
>> would be searchable.
> 
> Just to reiterate: all the symbols that come after "KEYWORDS" inside [pd META]
> must remain in English.  If you translate those keywords you will be _extremely_
> confused because a properly translated search homepage will display
> "translated_foo", and the [pd META] of the patch will have
> "KEYWORDS translated_foo", but the search-plugin will be searching under the
> hood for "foo" and you won't get results.
> 
> Upshot: if you want your Portuguese tutorial to work with the "Search by Category"
> links in the search-plugin, write the [pd META] "KEYWORDS" in English.  This puts
> slightly more work on the developer for the benefit of users reading categories in
> their native language, and I think that's a fair trade-off.  (Of course what would be
> ideal is for devs to write keywords in their native language, users to see them, and
> patch translation to just work, but it sounds like it's more complicated than that.)


I think its possible to have the keywords translatable, as long as the
keywords are also in english.  For example, if the translation is embedded in
the patch:

#X text 23 51 DESCRIPTION ;
#X text-po de BESCHREIBUNG ;
#X text-po es DESCRIPCIÓN ;

So each 'text-po' line would apply to the previous 'text' line.  That would
make it possible to search based on english keyword, but also other languages.

.hc