Bence Damokos, 21/01/2013 19:03:

IIRC, the Translate extension can only handle one source language as the basis of translation (so on Meta you can only use it for texts that are originally in English). Has this been changed to work better with multilingual content?

No, but this would be of use only for file descriptions, basically. It's unlikely that Commons would change file descriptions to a subpage system in the short term, especially as the UploadWizard relies on the current system and there are still thousands of templates and perhaps hundreds of project pages with incomplete translation. Perhaps this may happen when metadata will be split to a subpage using ContentHandler. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Files_and_licenses_concept

Jean-Frédéric, 21/01/2013 14:53:

For my little experience with the way the extension works on Meta, I see how it works to translate single pages, or messages assembled in a single page − this could indeed be very useful for all our multilingual pages (policy, help, etc.)

For pages it would be very easy to start if they don't have translations (but have good content), and easy to start with some conversion work for those with existing translations. Commons, as far as I've seen, doesn't have the mess of templates Meta has (with 3 or 4 generations of different systems) and this should help too.

Could the extension can, or be tweaked to, help with our other multilingual content? I can think of:

• templates (whether using Autotranslate/Fallback, LangSwitch, or

special constructs like {{Technique}})

• file descriptions ?
• POTD descriptions ?
• SiteNotice announcements ?

This needs to be studies by those who know those systems better. For file descriptions see above; {{autotranslate}} could work as is, for what I know; LS is already deprecated and should be killed at least for templates (multichill told me very few if any still use it, right?); POTD I have no idea; sitenotice is a custom hack of Commons from what I know, should work with some adaptation. Most relevant docs are at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:Translate/Page_translation_administration https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:Translate/Unstructured_element_translation

The UniversalLanguageSelector extension (
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:UniversalLanguageSelector )
allows users to easily switch the interface language; it also embeds
an interface to enter text in non-Latin languages even if your
keyboard doesn't allow it.

Seems very useful indeed.

Just asking: would it play nicely with our AnonymousI18N script? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:AnonymousI18N.js

If it's what I remember, that would be superseded.

Incidently, Rillke has openend a section on [[COM:VPP]] on this. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:VPP#Elaborate_whether_mw:Extension:UniversalLanguageSelector_is_suitable_for_Commons

There would probably be some adjustments to make to transition from
the current way we handle multilingual content and interface, but I
don't perceive them as insurmountable.

Yes. Indeed, I wondered above how the Extension would fit with our black magic, but we can certainly think of revamping our magic to benefit from the extensions.

Yes, and this requires that people who know the black magic study the extension a bit: devs can give better answers than me but it's still up to the community to decide what to do. You could play with the extension a bit: 1) you can ask translation admin rights on mediawiki.org or Meta and set up some pages for translation, 2) I (or others) can easily give translation admin + sysop on testwiki to do more or less whatever you wish.

Nemo

Jean-Frédéric, 22/01/2013 16:14:

(Please keep commons-l cc-ed, not everyone is subscribed to mediawiki-i18n. :)

    Could the extension can, or be tweaked to, help with our other
    multilingual content?
    […]

LS is already deprecated and should be killed at least for templates
(multichill told me very few if any still use it, right?);

Well, it has more than 3.7 millions transclusions… See also https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Internationalization_templates_using_LangSwitch

Sorry, I meant LanguageSelect (LS/WM:LS on Meta), not LangSwitch.

    Just asking: would it play nicely with our AnonymousI18N script?
    <https://commons.wikimedia.__org/wiki/MediaWiki:__AnonymousI18N.js
    <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:AnonymousI18N.js>>

If it's what I remember, that would be superseded.

AFAIK, AnonymousI18N handles the following :

• Language selection → Handled − that is kind of the purpose of the Universal Language

*Selector* right ? ;-)

• Language suggestion, based on « data from cookie, referal url &

browser settings » "referal" means that AnonymousI18N can detect that your are coming from it.wikipedia.org http://it.wikipedia.org, your interface should be in Italian → What about ULS ?

I think ULS is smarter than that.

• Language “uselang” persistency, regardless of the previous

Meaning, if landing on Commons from a URL with ?uselang=fr (obviously from templates on projects, but also from links everywhere [people like me who always tweet/write links with a uselang ;-)]), the ?uselang=fr is set for all outbound links, meaning language persistency.

→ ULS does not appear to do that from my test on TranslateWiki. (Arriving from https://translatewiki.net/?uselang=it, interface in Italian ; clicking a link, interface in French)

This is an "abuse" of ?uselang, more "standard" would be ?setlang. The selection is persistent with ULS, but uselang is not the way to make it; uselang still works as usual, though. What features of ULS can be enabled or not, I'm not able to say. As Niklas replied on Commons on this point, I guess it's better to continue there?

Nemo