Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by NCommander on Tuesday May 19 2015, @10:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the translators-will-be-wanted dept.

As the dev cycle for the first release of rehash winds down (one remaining bug before we're ready to deploy), I've turned my attention another large site-related project, specifically the possibility of internationalizing and localizing the site. Internationalizing a very large legacy codebase is a lot of work, and I want to gauge interest. For clarification, this work would translate the UI, and the site interface itself, and not the articles. Historically, I'm aware of two successful translation project, BarraPunto, and Slashdot.JP. However, both of those projects did so by simply rewriting the templates in their native language instead of using a more flexible system that would allow for dynamic processing.

After a few hours of cursing, I was successful in modifying rehash to use Locale::Maketext::Lexicon, and load translations dynamically from gettext when a template is loaded. The practical upshot is that if I continue with this effort, we will be able to import all the static strings in rehash, and translate them through any service that can handle standard gettext POT files (such as Launchpad Rosetta), then have rehash load the specific language on the fly depending on a user's settings, or their browsers preferences. This also has the benefit that translators would only require a minimal amount of HTML knowledge would be required to successfully translate rehash.

What I want to know is the following:

  • Is there significant interest to prioritize this project?
  • Are there enough people who are willing to engage in translating rehash to their native language?
  • Assuming there is a successful translation committed and launched, would people be interested in running a version of SN in their own native language?

As long as the first two answers are yes, I'll push to get a localized codebase in place for the next rehash development cycle (likely landing in July or August). Please note there is a *lot* of strings to be translated, I'm expecting upwards of a couple thousand once I've finished scrubbing through all the templates and libraries. If you are interested in this, please note your native language below, and I'll get in contact with you once we're ready to start doing translation work.

Just to show that this is indeed possible, here's the output of the generate-pot-files script, with the few templates I've gone through:

slashlithium~/src/rehash-ncommander$ bin/generate-pot-files
 * themes/default/templates/about;about;default
   - Total strings extracted : 21
 * themes/default/templates/admin;menu;default
   - Total strings extracted : 7
 * themes/default/templates/articlemoved;misc;default
   - Total strings extracted : 3
 * themes/default/templates/bannedtext_ipid;misc;default
   - Total strings extracted : 2
 * themes/default/templates/bannedtext_palm;misc;default
   - Total strings extracted : 2
 * themes/default/templates/main;404;default
   - Total strings extracted : 11
READING PO FILE : i18n/rehash.pot
WRITING PO FILE : ./i18n/rehash.pot
DONE
 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 5, Funny) by deimtee on Tuesday May 19 2015, @11:39AM

    by deimtee (3272) on Tuesday May 19 2015, @11:39AM (#185025) Journal

    Why don't you follow the time-honoured British tradition and simply speak loudly and slowly for the foreigners. (bold and fontsize +2)?

    --
    If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Insightful=1, Funny=2, Total=3
    Extra 'Funny' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @01:40PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @01:40PM (#185053)

    Oh, I see! You're volunteering to go out to get some meat. Not necessary! We have meat here. WE HAVE MEAT HERE IN ZE BUILDING!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @03:50PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @03:50PM (#185095)
      How ever did they win?
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @03:40PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @03:40PM (#185092)

    When you're in a foreign country and you ask someone "Where is the bus?" And they say "Nunna-kunnna." What do you do? Say it louder and slower, "WHERE, IS, THE, BUS!?".

    That's so dumb right? I mean try that the other way around; someone comes up to you and says "Nunna-kunnan". And you say "I'm sorry, I don't understand." "NU, - NNA, KU, - NNNA!" ... Oh sorry, it's just over there.

    -- Howie Mandell

  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday May 19 2015, @05:48PM

    by frojack (1554) on Tuesday May 19 2015, @05:48PM (#185146) Journal

    Why don't you follow the time-honoured British tradition and simply speak loudly and slowly for the foreigners. (bold and fontsize +2)?

    I always thought that was a uniquely american trait. In fact we fun shortwave radio broadcasts in "Special English" (in addition to just about every language on earth). We even have a website http://learningenglish.voanews.com/ [voanews.com] which will read you the stories in Special English.

    (It used to be called simple english on radio, but apparently the meaning of that was too obvious and the political correctness jumped in.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @10:28AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2015, @10:28AM (#187135)

      Americans speak loudly all the time. The British only speak loudly and slowly when talking to those who don't understand english.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @08:27PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @08:27PM (#185210)
    Maybe Garret Morris was speaking a foreign language.(?) ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=butZyxI-PRs [youtube.com]