[Kdenlive-devel] Kdenlive user manual

[Anne Wilson]

On Sunday 29 Aug 2010 09:47:29 Simon Eugster wrote:
> 
> @Anne, Thanks for your hint. I've been playing around with userbase
> this morning, trying to search for nasty limitations I knew from
> earlier ;) and checking whether it might be worth a try.
> What I've found out that pretty everything I used in wikibooks is
> possible in userbase as well now. Custom templates, custom CSS
> formatting, image descriptions. So, believe it or not, at the moment
> I'd as well vote for userbase.
> 
> What makes me worry a little bit is the translations. The czech one is
> maybe the most complete, or up-to-date, documentation at the moment.
> But Czech cannot be used as master language (raise your hand if you
> speak Czech) for the other translations. Using English as master
> language (which would make sense because most translators speak it)
> would force us to use exactly the same content in other languages as
> well, but (as an example) what if someone speaking Czech only wants to
> add some great content to the manual?

First, you are quite correct in assuming that English must be the master 
document.  Once translations exist in the new system they cannot be directly 
edited, so your Czech-only-speaking person could not add to it.  To my 
knowledge we have not yet met this problem, but one solution might be to have 
the text written onto the Talk/Discussion page.  From there it would be easy 
for a translator to pick it up and incorporate it into the English page, which 
would, in turn, ensure that it goes into all languages - a big benefit to all.  
In addition, we have a started but not yet advanced program of creating 
categories such as 'Pages in English', 'Sider på dansk', 'Stránky v dánštině' 
or 'Сторінки в данській'.  On the Category Pages associated with those it 
would be simple to add an instruction to users to add their tips to the 
Discussion page.  
> 
> How do other projects handle that? In my opinion, the translation
> system should not force all languages to use the same structure and
> content. Unless the master structure is perfect …
> 
I'm not certain what you have in mind here, so I'll just talk about how the 
system works.  You can ask more questions then, if you need to.

Once you hit the 'Translate this page' link you ask to see all messages, or 
all untranslated messages.  They are shown to you as paragraphs, as though you 
were translating in Lokalize.  You can translate as many 'messages' as you 
have time for, save it, and carry on later.

The structure, then, is forced, but providing the markup is correct you have 
some leeway on things like sentence structure.  We are still in early stages 
of finding problems, but are editing our documentation frequently as we learn 
from translators of the problems encountered and preferred solutions.  Yuri 
Chornovan is probably the best person to speak to, for the translator 
experience.  He has been involved from the beginning, has the most experience 
working with both UserBase and DocBook, and is in frequent contact with us.

> I found out that it would be possible to export DocBook as well from
> wikibooks. But it would require quite some handwork (an existing
> plugin I found is alpha only and also exports to an old DocBook
> version only). Our coding time might better be spent on kdenlive & Co.
> 
We have talked a lot with Burkhard Lueck, and the preferred method is for the 
UserBase page to be marked for translation, and the i10n team told it is 
ready.  The same Translate extension as is used for on-line translation can 
export to Gettext.  The team use this to pull the prepared page and then use 
their own customised scripts to prepare the DocBook.  I understand from 
Burkhard that they get much better results than with any of the off-the-peg 
tools.

One other thing that I should mention.  We have on our sandbox the facility to 
create PDF books - that is, the user can pick out the pages he particularly 
needs printing out, and create his own book.  The limitation at the moment is 
that it contains all the translation tags, but in the not-too-distant future 
that should be sorted.  We know the answer to it, but can't implement it just 
yet.

I hope this gives you a bit clearer idea of the possibilities, but of course 
you are welcome to ask any more questions here or on #kde-www.

Anne
-- 
KDE Community Working Group
New to KDE Software? - get help from http://userbase.kde.org
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