Translation suggestions

[Emdek]

1. Translate entries in .desktop file
Currently warzone2100.desktop file contains only German translations for translatable entries (mostly GenericName and Comment). This probably affects mainly users of desktops environments like KDE and GNOME but should be fixed anyway.
The biggest problem I think is method of providing these translations, should these be fake entries in .po files or should be posted somewhere?

2. Provide unified way to notify about translation updates
It would be nice if we have specialized system for sending translation updates, without messing Trac tickets system. Currently different translators use different approaches and we have some mess there...
There could be kind of form (or at least email address) to send updates on Translations page with brief description how to use it.
Additionally there could be probably added kind of script that could be run after each update of .po files (adding or changing messages), it would extract email address of last translator and send notification about new things to translate (maybe could include these statistics available on that page, but only for this one language, maybe also diff). I'm not sure if it is possible to check last translation update (but from translator, not automatic) to exclude emails of not active translators (for example that did not updated file for more than three months).

3. Simplify vehicle naming
Currently there is a lot of names of vehicles to translate (for example Viper Tracks Lancer) with have the same structure (body name + propulsion type + turret name). Couldn't be these assembled using translated parts only (reuse body translation and add parts like with Lancer and strings for propulsion type - like current but with comment describing it's difference with currently used)? Then we could have only translatable template, like %s %s %s to allow specifying order of these parts.
This would save a lot of work for translators and some hard disk space too.
I don't know how much changes in game engine would be needed but in case of translation this probably shouldn't cause major problems in translations.

4. Do not translate language names?
Language names probably shouldn't be translated and should be written in original form (for example Deutsch for German, Polski for Polish etc.). This could hard due to compiler limitations but could be done using kind of dictionary file containing language code and UTF=8 version of it's name written in that language.
Argument for this is that translating names of other languages is meaningless as in 99% cases user will want to set native language or English. Additionally for some users it might be easier to find entry for their language if it would be written in it's native form.

[Zarel]

3. Simplify vehicle naming
Currently there is a lot of names of vehicles to translate (for example Viper Tracks Lancer) with have the same structure (body name + propulsion type + turret name). Couldn't be these assembled using translated parts only (reuse body translation and add parts like with Lancer and strings for propulsion type - like current but with comment describing it's difference with currently used)? Then we could have only translatable template, like %s %s %s to allow specifying order of these parts.
This would save a lot of work for translators and some hard disk space too.
I don't know how much changes in game engine would be needed but in case of translation this probably shouldn't cause major problems in translations.

Already done in trunk. Slated to be backported to "2.3.1" unless someone objects.

[Emdek]

Already done in trunk. Slated to be backported to "2.3.1" unless someone objects.

Nice.

But what with the rest of suggestions (especially first is important)?

[cybersphinx]

2. Provide unified way to notify about translation updates

There's Pootle, but that needs to be set up on the server.

4. Do not translate language names?

On my system, translations are active immediately, so it always shows the translated language name (if it has a translation).

[Emdek]

2. Provide unified way to notify about translation updates

There's Pootle, but that needs to be set up on the server.

Nice.
I was searching for Trac plugin for that purpose but nothing found...
Maybe someone could modify script to generate nice HTML & CSS bars for visualization (I can try to do it myself)?

4. Do not translate language names?

On my system, translations are active immediately, so it always shows the translated language name (if it has a translation).

But there are some cases when it can not select right language.
And there is another problem, there is some language names to translate with is not needed (user is interested usually only in own language ) and translations cause problems, like translated language name not fitting available space in UI.

And what with these translations for .desktop file? It really looks bad when for example you have in menu all descriptions translated and one is not. Or in tool tip of launcher...

By the way, I've updated translation yesterday in time for beta13 and I hoped that it will be included (contains many more or less important fixes). This shows that we really need better organization for translations.

[Saberuneko]

I really agree with suggestions 2,3 and 4. (I didn't get what you mean with 1...)

I still get a little confused when trying to give the updates, I start asking myself (forum, trac? Where??)

The vehicle names, I thought the same while translating them all, but I thought they couldn't be in other way (I thought, if they could be in simple way, the devs would had them simplified already)

The last one, I like it, finding your own language in it's native makes things easier, or at least just leaving it in English. Anyway, it's good thing that wz already tries to set the language to the native system's one. Makes everything really easy to new users.

[Emdek]

I didn't get what you mean with 1...

Here is specification of standard (section about localizing), this should explain purpose of that file.

[cybersphinx]

On my system, translations are active immediately, so it always shows the translated language name (if it has a translation).

But there are some cases when it can not select right language.

What cases are those?

And there is another problem, there is some language names to translate with is not needed (user is interested usually only in own language ) and translations cause problems, like translated language name not fitting available space in UI.

As I said, if the language name is translated, it will always be shown in the native language, so translating other language names isn't really needed.

By the way, I've updated translation yesterday in time for beta13 and I hoped that it will be included (contains many more or less important fixes). This shows that we really need better organization for translations.

Well, in that case, nobody except me noticed, since the ticket was already closed, and I couldn't apply it in time. I've suggested auto-reopening tickets when a new attachment is added, but got no reaction. (And even if it was reopened, nobody except me has applied any translations recently...)

[Saberuneko]

Definitely... We need some way to organise better the translation updates...

[Emdek]

But there are some cases when it can not select right language.

What cases are those?

I've never encountered any on my system, but I've heard that this can happen (strange things can happen sometimes on very untypical configurations ).

And there is another problem, there is some language names to translate with is not needed (user is interested usually only in own language ) and translations cause problems, like translated language name not fitting available space in UI.

As I said, if the language name is translated, it will always be shown in the native language, so translating other language names isn't really needed.

So why not put them in their native form directly and do not add these strings to .po files?

By the way, I've updated translation yesterday in time for beta13 and I hoped that it will be included (contains many more or less important fixes). This shows that we really need better organization for translations.

Well, in that case, nobody except me noticed, since the ticket was already closed, and I couldn't apply it in time. I've suggested auto-reopening tickets when a new attachment is added, but got no reaction. (And even if it was reopened, nobody except me has applied any translations recently...)

I've tried to reopen that ticket but there were some issues (lack of permission, but reopen option shown ) when I've tried to do that last time, probably remains of reporting it as not registered user... I'll check it again next time (soon ).

So this is very true:

Definitely... We need some way to organise better the translation updates...

[cybersphinx]

So why not put them in their native form directly and do not add these strings to .po files?

Because then we'd need Unicode in source files. And IIRC Windows usually uses some 16 bit encoding for that, while Linux uses UTF-8.

So this is very true:

Definitely... We need some way to organise better the translation updates...

Pester Kamaze to install Pootle.

[Emdek]

So why not put them in their native form directly and do not add these strings to .po files?

Because then we'd need Unicode in source files. And IIRC Windows usually uses some 16 bit encoding for that, while Linux uses UTF-8.

That's why I've earlier said that these could be stored in kind of data file with format similar to INI (language identifier as key and string name as value).

[cybersphinx]

That's why I've earlier said that these could be stored in kind of data file with format similar to INI (language identifier as key and string name as value).

We already have the language names in external files: the po files. I don't see any need to complicate this further, but if you want to write a patch for that, we might consider it.

[Emdek]

That's why I've earlier said that these could be stored in kind of data file with format similar to INI (language identifier as key and string name as value).

We already have the language names in external files: the po files. I don't see any need to complicate this further, but if you want to write a patch for that, we might consider it.

Yes, we have them there, but we don't need to have them translated in every supported language.
I can try later to create patch, I've found some example code for parsing INI files, so now I mainly need a bit of free time...

And what about adding other translations of game description into it's .desktop file?

[cybersphinx]

I can try later to create patch, I've found some example code for parsing INI files, so now I mainly need a bit of free time...

We already have an ini parser in the code.

And what about adding other translations of game description into it's .desktop file?

No idea. Propose something? I only do the po files, because it's easy and nobody else does.