[therion] string list

[Martin Budaj]

>> Could you give me a list of strings to translate user interface?
>>
>> I started editing files in xtherion directory just for fun; after the
>> first rush, I can see aprox 60% of my user interface in spanish.
>> However, I'm getting some nasty errors about bad index entries because I
>> feared to touch some things not marked label or text. I'm not a coder
>> and this is the first time I see Tcl code. Fixed the first four or five
>> errors, but detected others, and got a beautiful freeze just now.
>> Expended more time debugging than translating.


I'm afraid that xtherion is not really prepared for translations  :-(  Few
months ago there was a discussion about translating it; I append the
substantial parts.

M.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Martin Budaj" <m.b at speleo.sk>
To: therion at speleo.sk
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 13:12:49 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: Re: [therion] new user ....

>> - Is there any plan, or any contact taken,  for a french translation? If
>> not, and if you think that internationalisation could be easy enough in
>> the current version of the code, I could find the time to help you for
>> that...


Well, there were more requests to translate therion to other languages.
This can be done on more levels (which one do you mean?):

- map output
- console messages from therion
- xtherion's user interface
- input language (commands)
- documentation

The first is fully supported and we have already Czech and Slovak
translations. Contributions are welcome.

The last requires more effort while the documentation is changing and
growing rapidly.

IMHO all other three fields (messages, UI, input language) are deeply
wedded together -- I see no great advance in translating messages if
xtherion's interface remains English, and only confusion if the UI gets
translated but the user has to fill english options for commands
(E.g. you see translated label 'options' in your language but have to fill
'-subtype ...' in English)

On the other side, translation of the input language could create a total
mess. What about

Punkt 0 0 Wurzel -Sichtbarkeit ein -abschneiden aus
or
bod 0 0 kore? -vidite?nos? áno -oreza? nie

The only real solution I see is to make the GUI in such a way that therion
and its language would be completely hidden. see
http://labyrinth.speleo.sk


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Eric Madelaine <madelain at nerim.fr>
To: therion at speleo.sk
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 23:05:31 +0200
Subject: Re: [therion] new user ....

>> Translations
>> - map output
>> The first is fully supported and we have already Czech and Slovak
>> translations. Contributions are welcome.


  Ok, this one is easy, I volunteer gladly for a french translatin.

>> - documentation
>> The last requires more effort while the documentation is changing and
>> growing rapidly.


    Well, yes... Ok, I will not promissed any large amount of work just
now. But I'll think about what I can do, and I will certainly do some
introduction paper in french, in the same spirit than wookey's paper in
Compass Point.

>> - console messages from therion
>> - xtherion's user interface
>> - input language (commands)


   Console messages and UI are going together (just as they go in
survex  and the survex-related tools, for which I do contribute my own
set of french sentences from time to time...). But this is why I wrote
"if the code already supports internationalisation...". So I undertsand
that it is not yet the case, and I will not push it anymore (:-(
   Input language is a separate topic, I agree. But then, I'm not sure
why you would not be able to change the lexer without changing the rest
of the parser, and get variants for the language... (Again, I'm not
suggesting that you should do it)




---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Stacho Mudrak <s.m at speleo.sk>
To: therion at speleo.sk
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 10:08:21 +0200
Subject: Re: new user ....

>>   Ok, this one is easy, I volunteer gladly for a french translatin.


OK, I'll have a look at the code and then I'll write you what exactly to do
(I do not remember now  :) .

>>>>- documentation
>>>>The last requires more effort while the documentation is changing and
>>>>growing rapidly.
>
>>
>>     Well, yes... Ok, I will not promissed any large amount of work just
>> now. But I'll think about what I can do, and I will certainly do some
>> introduction paper in french, in the same spirit than wookey's paper in
>> Compass Point.


I'm afraid, there is no comprehensive documentation to translate. ThBook is
just a reference guide - I think, it will not help people, even if it will
be translated.

>>   Console messages and UI are going together (just as they go in
>> survex  and the survex-related tools, for which I do contribute my own
>> set of french sentences from time to time...). But this is why I wrote
>> "if the code already supports internationalisation...". So I undertsand
>> that it is not yet the case, and I will not push it anymore (:-(


Not exactly  :)  The internationalization code works in therion. Adding
translation for 50 messages that therion generates is a work for 30
minutes. Also translating things in xtherion wouldn't be much work (I guess
one evening) within the same framework.

>>    Input language is a separate topic, I agree. But then, I'm not sure
>>why you would not be able to change the lexer without changing the rest of
>>the parser, and get variants for the language... (Again, I'm not
>>suggesting that you should do it)


This is again very easy - to add alternatives to parsing tables. In fact,
they are already there to cover UK/US variants :))) pit/pitch,
center/centre etc... We are just afraid of a mess, that can happen... I'm
almost sure, that if I would write

bod 0 0 -typ bre`ko

nobody in the world with exception of CK/CZ would understand this code...
In any case, internationalization is a topic for discussion. Last week we
have realized, that at least, we should allow also real numbers with comma
(e.g. 3,5), because otherwise people must allways switch to english keyboard.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Olly Betts <olly at survex.com>
To: therion at speleo.sk
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 16:22:15 +0100
Subject: Re: [therion] new user ....
On Mon, Jun 14, 2004 at 11:05:31PM +0200, Eric Madelaine wrote:

>>    Input language is a separate topic, I agree. But then, I'm not sure
>> why you would not be able to change the lexer without changing the rest
>> of the parser, and get variants for the language... (Again, I'm not
>> suggesting that you should do it)


It's possible, but it's not a sane route to go down.

The problem comes when users using different i18ns want to exchange
files (for example, CUCC shares survey data with the German cavers who
work in the same area of Austria).  Worse, what if I want to change a
survey data file sent to me in German?  I'm forced to try to understand
the German version of the file format, and either I have to make my
changes in German, or the parser will need to understand every keyword
from every language at once!

A real world example - Microsoft translated keywords in the macro
language for either Word or Excel (maybe both!) so a coworker had a fun
time translating some macro scripts we shipped to clients by installing
both versions and comparing the two manuals...)  And of course each time
the macros changed, he had to dig out the manuals, and retest everything
on the translated version.

A better approach would be to translate the keywords from english (or
some canonical form) and back to the canonical form on save.  That way
I can edit a data file from a German surveyor in English, and the
language used in the file format becomes just an implementation detail,