[PD] more fun with translations

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On 12/28/2012 04:22 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 2:39 PM
>> Subject: Re: [PD] more fun with translations
>>
> 
> [...]
> 
>> 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.
> 
> Doesn't Transifex make Pd-Extended dependent and to some extent locked in
> to a commercial web service?

Transifex is all free software, so someone could run their own transifex
instance if they wanted to.  Transifex is based on the standard GNU gettext
tools, so its easy to stop using it at anytime, and just use the normal .po
translation tools like poedit.  It is a commercial service, but I have no
problem with commerce.  Since it is not proprietary service, I see it as a
great free software tool to support our free software work.

>> 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
> 
> Hm, that is probably (and unfortunately) necessary because Pd patches cannot
> automatically adjust themselves vertically to make room if more lines of text are
> needed.  So if you have a one-line comment in English that turns into two lines in
> French, your system of text_po will end up with overlapping text and thus illegible
> patches.
> 
> BTW-- matju's GF helpsystem _does_ adjust vertical space as needed. :)

I think that automated text layout won't work well unless the layout engine
can also move the patch stuff around.  At that point you have a good 'tidy up'
algorithm.  So I think its possible to adjust the layout so it fits well
enough for all langauges, then just save the file like that.

.hc