[PD] more fun with translations

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On 12/28/2012 05:21 PM, Pierre-Olivier Boulant wrote:
> 
> 
> 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

What exception would be needed for Right-to-Left languages?  They are still
blocks of text with roughly the same line breaking rules, with the biggest
difference in layout being that its right-justified instead of left justified.

.hc