[kde-doc-english] local copy of exported userbase documentation

[Burkhard Lück]

Am Samstag, 3. September 2011, 13:29:26 schrieb Anne Wilson:
> On Saturday 03 Sep 2011 Burkhard Lück wrote:
> > > Can't you also translate the wiki?
> > 
> > [german translators hat on]
> > Translating in the wiki is a PITA compared to using Lokalize incorporated
> > in  scripty's workflow...
> 
> It is, of course, possible to use the web interface to call the messages
> for use with Lokalize.  

Yes , but that workflow is using only a limited part of the capabilities of 
Lokalize/Scripty. And starts doing the wrong thing, exporting po files 
(msgstr/msgid) is an error. What needs to be exported are pot files 
(msgstr+empty msgid).

> However, at DS Albert said that translators would 
> be much happier if they didn't have to use the web interface at all.  

It is not about translators beeing happy/unhappy, it is about wasting/not 
wasting limited resources (translators time).

tsdgeos/pino/chusslove (big three of i18n in kde) invest an incredible and 
completely underestimated amount of work to control scripty, adapt its 
workflow, move, merge, delete catalogs to follow code/doc changes etc. to 
prevent, that all translator waste their time doing each the same job several 
times:
get to know what has changed
extract/download that
push it back
and that for each individual page

These time consuming tasks are done only centrally and automatically by 
Scripty once a day for all translators, so each translators has to perform 
only three tasks:

1) update language fom svn
2) translate using eg localize
3) commit to svn

1) + 3) are usually done whithin a few seconds, so translators can concentrate 
on their core task: translate. 

And having all german translations on a folder on my disk enables me to use 
tools like pology, scripts etc to review translations, fix errors and keep the 
german translations consistent.
That's not doable with web translation or exporting only single po files.
 
> I'm
> told that the API is well documented at http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API
> - I'd like to add a page to all the wikis explaining how to use it, but a)
> I haven't had time to explore it and b)I doubt if I have the knowledge and
> skills to write such a page.  If anyone would care to give me an outline,
> based on that, I'll see whether I can suitably flesh it out.
> 
My knowledge about this API is limited as well, but for any question regarding 
the i18n part of a possible workflow I'd be very happy to help.

Thanks.

-- 
Burkhard Lück