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