At 10:45 AM +0000 11/22/09, Anne Wilson wrote:
As I said at the beginning of this thread, we are testing this extension on a sandbox wiki. We have involved a few translators from different backgrounds. With the minimum of instruction they have played with a sample page or two. There has been some feedback - things that they would like changing, but I'm told that nothing they have said is difficult to set up (I am not a php person, I have to leave that part to others).
I cannot understand why you think that the extension doesn't work with wiki pages. And for those with other translation needs, exporting a .po file seems to be very useful to them.
I don't think I said that it doesn't work with wiki pages (I have NOT tested it, so I really don't know). BUT the information available to me makes it look like it is meant for interfaces.
From my perspective, the statements made here seem strange. I'm one of the
people who would be most interested in a good translation extension. When the topic came up, Siebrand suggested this extension as if it is obvious that it would translate pages as well as the interface. That seemed to me like an error, since ALL the examples and links on the pages given show how it can be used for interfaces. So it is NOT obvious. I STILL have no example showing how this extension can be used to translate anything other than an interface.
I could very well be wrong, but there isn't any evidence to show that this extension can be used in the way suggested.
PLEASE, someone prove me wrong. Give me a link to somewhere that this is being used to translate something that is NOT an interface.
I just want some evidence that this extension does what you claim it does.
From the documentation I've seen on translatewiki.net, it doesn't appear to
be able to handle more complex translation.
Perhaps you need to explain exactly what it is that you want, that the extension can't do. If you have misunderstood, then someone will be able to help you. If it really can't do it, then it will be possible to discuss whether it should be able to, or whether that's a different problem.
Anne
At a minimum, a translation extension needs to present the source document/page and target text side-by-side in large blocks of text. The target should allow complete wiki formatting, while the source should be "locked" so that it can't be edited on the page. It must be very easy to set up a source document to be translated and very easy to copy over the formatting of that document when needed.
Beyond this, it would be very useful to be able to look up individual words from the source document in various online dictionaries/glossaries (perhaps clicking on a word brings up a new window with the definition(s) from Google translate and other bilingual sources) so that the translator can easily consult and choose among alternative translations.
In addition, a good system would include some way of accessing past translations in other contexts, so that the translator can see how he/she has translated the same word/phrase before, or, even better, how many other translators have translated similar phrases (see Google's translation toolkit or many of the translation software packages used by professionals -- this feature is known as "translation memories")
I'm not particularly well versed in how good translation software works, so there is likely other features that would be useful. But I think the above covers the most basic needs.
I encourage those who need a translation extension or are involved in programming one to look at Google's translation toolkit for an example of the basics (Google's toolkit isn't particularly good -- the commercial packages are much better -- but it does give an idea of what a translator needs).
Kent