Improve Localization Process

Purpose of this page is to collect ideas to improve the Localization process of the several GnuCash components.

Motivation

It is often heard by translators, it is so hard to get a recent pot file for the one or other Gnucash component. This is the right place to sketch and evaluate ideas to improve the process.

Web Based Translation Tools

Several services for translation coordination exist:

FOSS

GlotPress

a site using the wordpress plugin, PHP based

Pootle

for localization of applications' GUIs using, uses Translate Toolkit

translatewiki.net

uses mediawiki Extension:Translate

Weblate

(suggested by Pedro (pt_PT)), uses Translate Toolkit

Zanata

site CLI, REST-API, java/js based

Proprietary

Crowdin

integrations, for FOSS free

POEditor

free for FOSS

Transifex

GSM, SaaS, for FOSS free

and several more

Checklist

VCS integration? GitHub vs. GitLab should not be an issue

Are they free? (Both meanings)

Toolkits

Translate Toolkit, partially used by aqbanking.

Implementation Thoughts

We had some discussion.

Weblate

From https://lists.gnucash.org/logs/2020/10/15.html#T15:09:05 - 19:38:30; https://lists.gnucash.org/logs/2020/10/16.html#T07:59:20 - 12:02:34

In theory you can run your own weblate instance or have a hosted project at weblate.org, which is is free for FOSS. User:Fell thinks the hosted form could attract new translators and has less administrative overhead.

Server Relation

Ideally code as primary git server should push changes to weblate.org. Weblate.org again should create PRs on github, which we then merge after review.

Status

Implemented on 2020-12-15. For the current status see Weblate.

Remaining Ideas by Repos

Each repo push it's (almost all [Exception TP]) existing po files.

ToDo

They should contain their pot file to allow users to create translations for new languages.

glossary

Got high priority, so it is listed first. Origin: gnucash:po/glossary

ToDo

1. We should recommend to translate it first and after approval load it into Weblates glossary.
2. Replace MsgId="*: by Msgcontext="*"\nMsgId="

Update

If gnc-glossary.txt changes,

1. run txt-to-pot.sh
2. msgmerge it in all po files
3. commit and push

gnucash

Determinating string changes

Before committing changes to C, scm, … source files generate a gnucash.pot. Or we change the policy and add it to the repo.

1. After the commit create a tmp.pot.
2. Create a diff between both pot files filtered by grep ^msgid.
3. If found,
   1. move tmp.pot to gnucash.pot
   2. merge it into the po files
   3. commit po files locally
   4. push po files plus pot file to weblate
   5. Cleanup (remove gnucash.pot).

General problem

Gitolite hooks can not commit.

So an alternative could be to implement it in the normal make check:

If a ^msgid diff is found, fail with the instruction to commit the changed po[t] files.

htdocs

almost the same as gnucash, but the sources are *.{[p]html|php}

docs

TBD after itstools