[PD] more fun with translations

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On 12/28/2012 01:08 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: Friday, December 28, 2012 12:52 PM
>> Subject: Re: [PD] more fun with translations
>>
>> 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:
> 
> Nevertheless, for the time being, don't put KEYWORDS in anything but English
> if you want the search-plugin category search to work with them.
> 
>>
>> #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.
> 
> That might work.  Can you make those changes to Pd so that it accepts text-po?
> 
> Also, I assume the translators will just edit the source code, so would there be a
> potential problem if they go past Pd's default limit for the line length before they
> make a linebreak?

No, the idea would be there would be an editor for them, so that the strings
can be extracted and put up on transifex, and then downloaded and inserted
into a patch file.  That would be the method for bulk translation.

Making this part of the normal Pd editor would be harder.  There would need to
be a way for a patch to be marked with a locale, something like:

#X declare -locale fr_CA

Then that would make all 'text' items assumed to be fr_CA.  Then there would
need to be a way to change the visible locale.  Seems tricky to do it right in
the UI.  That's why a compiled technique is appealing.

pob just suggested another route, which is sticking the locale in the file
name, i.e bang-help.fr.pd

.hc