[Kdenlive-devel] Kdenlive user manual

[Simon Eugster]

2010/8/29 Anne Wilson <annew at kde.org>:
> 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.

Thank you for the explanations, this definitely sounds interesting.


@All
What is your opinion?
Userbase? Drupal? WikiBooks?

Contents have to be merged anyways. The English manual is most
up-to-date on kdenlive.org, other languages are only on WikiBooks,
like the Czech one.

Simon