On Tue, 2013-11-12 at 05:13 -0800, Leslie S Satenstein wrote: > Pete, > > Perhaps I am wrong about Transifex. My understanding is that you have > to enter your text into Transifex so that eventually the translators > can get to work on translating the text to second languages. What is > the official method or software to use for submitting documentation? > Am I wrong to assume we must write using Transifex? If so, please > correct me. Publican creates files that are uploaded to Transifex. Translators then work their magic to create other files that are downloaded back into the document repository. The translators have a wide variety of tools to use when actually doing the translation. I don't see any evidence of "peer review" but given the range of tools I suspect it is possible. > Re Transifex. I have some questions relative to Fedora. > > Does Transifex allow for markups and for peer review? Can I do that > review using Transifex while commuting on the subway? Does it show me > the markup changes with comments alongside? I did not see that > "markup and peer review" are part of Transifex functionality. Again, there are many, many tools available to translators. I believe the model is for the translator to download a file from Tx to work on, so clearly much of the work can be done offline. > I am not belittling Transifex. It is a good tool for its purposes. > But it is not ubiquitous, Libreoffice is. (Actually I use Kingsoft > Linux free version, It is software from China. Looks and feels like MS > office). Libre Office does not do a good job with the large documents we tend to produce. It is virtually impossible to maintain consistency across documents, and it works very poorly when you have multiple writers. It is a totally different category of tool. Think of Libre Office as the Chevy, and Publican as the Mack truck. Different tool for a different job. Sure, I could haul 100 tons of oranges in my Chevy in a bunch of trips, but it is way easier with the right tool. And like the Mack truck, Publican is a bit harder to learn than the Chevy. (Well, I would dispute that actually. it's just that a lot of folks already know how to use Libre Office, but I think it is really quite a bit harder.) And with translation, with Libre Office you essentially re-write the document for each language. The tools we use produce lists of "strings", many of which are re-used. The original intent of the document is maintained while with a total re-translate as would be needed with Office it would be tough to ensure that all the languages said the same thing. Plus, the tool chain recognizes re-used strings so they don't need to be translated multiple times. For the Guides, which are mostly the same from release to release, this is a huge win. Tx shows the translators those strings that changed and those that didn't. With Office, one would have to rummage through the entire document to figure out what needs translation. In addition, the same translation toolset is used for documents as well as applications. There really is no Office equivalent for applications. Programmers would have to manually create a new version for each language, something that doesn't happen with the current toolchain. With Tx, translators see the same thing whether the target is a document or an application. Probably also worth mentioning - Transifex is merely a portal to allow translators to get at stuff that needs translation. There are quite a number of alternatives that use the same, industry standard, mechanisms, but most of those are language-specific. Tx is simpler to use than most of the others as far as I can tell, and it brings all the languages into one place. Some teams actually move the strings from Transifex into their own, language-specific portal. This way they are using what they are most comfortable with, and when they get something done they move it back to Transifex. But this, like the wide variety of clients, is only possible because of using industry standard formats. --McD > > > > Regards > > Leslie > > Mr. Leslie Satenstein > An experienced Information Technology specialist. > 50 years in IT as hardware/software/engineer. > Yesterday was a good day, today is a better day, > and tomorrow will be even better. > lsatenstein@xxxxxxxxx > SENT FROM MY OPEN SOURCE LINUX SYSTEM. > > > > > > ______________________________________________________________ > From: Pete Travis <me@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > To: docs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > Sent: Monday, November 11, 2013 9:59 PM > Subject: Re: Lowering the participation barrier for Fedora > Docs > > > On 11/11/2013 06:22 PM, Leslie S Satenstein wrote: > > > Hi Pete > > Your blog below was quite appropriate. I work in aerospace > > and do a fair amount > > of writing and software development. The editing department > > here is also a translation > > department as the company is a global one, dealing with > > Chinese, Indian dialects, French, Spanish, > > and a slew of UN national languages. The translators want > > paragraphs of text. The English editor wants > > text delivered double spaced 12 size font, with revision > > management enabled and comments enabled. > > The company uses MS word, but Libreoffice, (for Fedora's > > purpose), would suffice. > > > > By allowing authors to use Libreoffice, along with > > Libreoffice's revision management, I believe that a quality > > product and a more easily and accurately translated source > > would be generated. > > > > Regarding installations, and expositories, there are > > varying levels of expertise as Fedora users. Many users, > > from my use of forums is that they are more frequented by > > are beginners. They want a working Fedora distribution, > > so that they may use the tools that are included. (from > > workbenches, to business software). I would say that the > > more experienced individuals do not frequent the forums too > > often, as "they know it all, and what can they learn?" > > > > Your ideas are great, I fully agree with them, but "when the > > only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a > > nail". > > My view is that the tool you are using, with po files, is > > great for application code messages. It misses something > > when > > used as the documentation preparation tool. > > > > Can you please try this experiment. Are you able to ask an > > author to write his stuff with Libreoffice, and then turn on > > revision managment to send out his work for comments and > > feedback. Lets see how that works. I would even take a page > > or two of text, if it is handed to me that way. > > > > Libreoffice is not a barrier, since is is ubiquitous. > > Regards > > > > Leslie > > > > > > > > I don't know how to tell you any harder that Transifex is > *NOT* an automated machine translation service. It has the > ability to use external machine translation, but the Fedora > Project does not use this ability. There are real people > reading these strings and translating them into their native > languages. If you want to improve translations, you should > contribute translations. The localization workflow is not > broken, and the tools are excellent. > > Emailing LibreOffice back and forth is certainly more > efficient than the mailing of physical paper that the workflow > is modeled after. It is *not* an improvement over an actual > distributed version control system. As I've said before, use > whatever editor you like - as long as the markup is correct > and the files are saved in plain text. > > When I'm talking about "lowering participation barriers", I'm > thinking that most people with active FAS accounts know how to > use git, are familiar or can easily become familiar with > ReStructuredText or Markdown, and occasionally can take 15 > minutes to write up a post. I'm not talking about > restructuring everyone's workflow to suit your preference or > enabling your criticism of translations. Please don't turn > this discussion into a monologue of your storied past followed > by insistence that we adopt a different and labor-intensive > workflow because you aren't willing to learn what we already > to. That topic has already been discussed enough. > > -- > -- Pete Travis > - Fedora Docs Project Leader > - 'randomuser' on freenode > - immanetize@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > > -- > docs mailing list > docs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > To unsubscribe: > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/docs > > > > -- docs mailing list docs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/docs
