[lime-users] Translation of LibreRouter software

Hi, Patrick/Patricio/Pato here, coordinating the translation of the software and documentation related to the LibreRouter. I write to the list to let folks know what's going on and open for feedback about the current plan. After considering various options of what platform to use for translation management, I think the most appropriate is TranslateWiki.net, because it means: - someone else takes care of the hosting, - is costs us no money (though we could donate some if they need it and if our budget allows), - we share the platform with other open source software projects, - we join a platform that already has an active community of translators in many languages, - the software running the platform is stable and has been in production use to translate the MediaWiki interface for some time, - and all of that together means that once we get our process with TranslateWiki.net going well, it could run easily for years and allow the addition of new languages easily. Joining TranslateWiki.net requires giving direct push commit access to at least one TranslateWiki.net admin, so that new translations get committed quickly and thus new translations make it into software releases as quickly as practical. I hope that we can get a relationship with TranslateWiki.net setup and translation underway before the end of October, so if you have any ideas, questions, objections, please respond in the next few days. [A shortcoming of TranslateWiki.net is that it can't handle ODT files, which is the current format for the documentation booklets. We'll either find a way to convert the booklet text into a compatible format, or we'll use a different tool (perhaps Zanata) that works well with the current creation process of the booklets. More about documentation translation in another email.] For those curious about TranslateWiki.net, see this page https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:New_project For those who want to understand i18n and l10n from a software development perspective (that's internationalization and localization), see: https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Localisation_for_developers *Developers, please read that, at least a little.* To see our conversation so far with TranslateWiki.net: https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Support#LibreRouter:_new_project_with_softwa… Once a software has an i18n and l10n structure setup, we add a "qqq" language file for the documentation about each string that will be translated. More details about that here: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Localisation#Message_documentation SOFTWARE: LibreMesh uses Gettext, and is translated into Spanish: https://github.com/libremesh/lime-packages/blob/develop/packages/lime-webui… LimeApp uses a JSON format, and is translated into Spanish: https://github.com/libremesh/lime-app/tree/master/i18n/translations Firmware Chef uses Gettext, and is translated into Spanish: https://github.com/libremesh/alterchef/tree/master/altermeshfc/altermeshfc/… I haven't yet found the locations of the translation files for the following software, or confirmed whether the software even has translation files: - LibreMap https://github.com/libremap - WiFi Calling (app and server) -- repository unknown - LimeBuild / Cooker / SDK https://github.com/libremesh/lime-sdk - LibreNet6 -- repository unknown - Pitbull captive portal https://github.com/libremesh/pitbull - LibreServer (more complex since it's an entire GNU/Linux distro, though maybe there's a central admin interface) -- repository unknown Over the long term, we might consider changing the i18n/l10n format of some of the software to a format preferred by TranslateWiki.net, as described in this note from TranslateWiki.net: "Use of key-based file formats is preferred, like Java properties and Ruby-style YAML. Other supported file formats are PHP arrays, PHP variables and Gettext." For now, making such a change is not priority and probably not within our capacity. Pau pointed out to me that in LibreMesh, there's a little program that pulls strings out of the code and puts them in the translation files, and that a similar function would be necessary if we changed to a different format. We could ask at TranslateWiki.net if they know of such programs. ~ Patrick