[PD] more fun with translations

[Pierre-Olivier Boulant]

On 28/12/2012 23:00, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
> 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
Are you planning an exception for Arabic and Hebrew? :)
I suppose that Japanese and Chinese on computers is written in the Latin 
order, left to right and then top to bottom.
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/direction.htm

pob