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see also: TranslationToolReportBugs and it's to do list!

Feature Suggestions and Reports for the TranslationTool

Please feel free to suggest new Features for the TranslationTool here!

Chat button more visible (Done)

We had a link to our channel #translationtool at irc.indymedia.org on our startpage. This was rarely used, since insiders knew the channel anyway and others didn't see it or didn't dare to use it. Also, the link (irc://irc.indymedia.org/translationtool) did not work for all browsers.

The new chat button looks like this: Quite eye catching, isn't it?

It is not only included on the startpage but on all the translationwork-related pages. And with the "Live Help!" label on it, people can understand that this link is made for them to get some help, whenever they need it. If they click on it, they will be connected as guest to the channel #translationtool on the new indymedia chat server: chat.indymedia.org. They are connected in a few seconds and don't need to install a chat-client. The link works with any modern browser (Mozilla, Firefox, IE, Opera) and does not even rely on javascript being enabled.

Stylesheets switching

People should be able to select their own preferred stylesheet for the user interface (like on active and mir systems)

Color Codes (Done)

Color Codes for the translation phases (to do, I'll doit, part, rev, done)

Permanent Translations section (Done)

Feature Proposal: Add a new section or find any other technical solution so that the 2 months deadline does not apply for the requests that should stay live longer than 2 months (like tech requests about software internationalisation, translation of whole manuals, etc.) => meanwhile the deadline was set to 4 months (Needs to be stated in posting_form and user guidelines -> Done).

Send emails to language specific translation work mailing lists (Done)

Language specific mailingslists can "subscribe" to the TranslationTool now and will get notifications of translation requests in their language as emails.

For example: the www-it list could receive emails from the tool whenever a translationrequest on the tool has the language code "it" as target or source language in the language/topic field. The corresponding string is detected via regular expressions, a very flexible expresssion language for pattern matching, so most algorithms should be possible

Input form validation (Done)

People have to fill in several input fields when posting a translation request, a translation or a comment. They might forget some fields and therefore must get an error message to tell them what is missing.

Using javascript, we now check all the entrees of the input form, tell in the error message what is missing and point the users to the corresponding field. This interaction takes place on the client side (your browser) and is much faster than requesting our server.

If you have disabled Javascript in your browser preferences, you will also get error messages, again for every single field that is missing - but this time from the server. After clicking on the OK button, you will come back to the input form. Most (not all!) entries will be saved, so that you don't have to enter them again.

Posting Button changed place and is more visible now (Done)

The button for posting a request was only visible on the startpage. If you clicked around on the to do / I'lldo / part / done icons or maybe used the search engine, the search results made the button to disappear. It was not obvious that you had to go back to the unchanged starting page to make it appear again. This was one reason, why people sometime had problems to find the button th post a translation request. Another reason might be its layout (size, color, place)

Now the button is given a permanent visibility right below the headline of the startpage. It won't disappear anymore when searching or clicking on icons. It also changed color and size. When moving a mouse over it (and javascript being enabled), it will change colors, giving the user the impression of a potential action.

Differentiate between source and Target Languages (Done)

So far we only gave language codes to each article without telling if the language was a source language or a target language. Now we differentiate this using the following syntax: [source: fr] , [de: todo] , [en: done] (meaning: the original article is in French and the requested target languages are in German and English). This has some implications:

• You can search for target or source languages seperately if you like.
• Also the rss/rdf-Feeds are affected. You could create a new feed that only notifies you whenever a request for your preferred target language or your preferred source language or a combination of both appears. (See Example 3 and 4 on RDF/RSS-search form )
• New links in the center column of the startpage (Below the To do, I'll do, revision, part and done icons) make it easier for you to see if articles of a special source or target language are have been done or are waiting for being translated by you.

See User Guide.

Posting Requests for Multiple Languages (Done)

The Tool initially was designed for translation of articles form one source language to one target language. But many users posted translation requests to multiple target languages, so the moderators started with this [de: todo] , [en: done]- syntax. Many new users had difficulties with this syntax so we gave them some help, using Javascript (see table). ( Done )

Topic / Language

Source Language de en es fr it pt Reset

Target Language   de en es fr it pt To do I'll do it For Revision Done Reset

Table: Translation request from spanish to german and english, with english being done. The topic-keyword is 'Argentine'.

See User Guide.

Interaction with Dispatch-System or Indy.global (XML-RPC)

• One idea is to automatically send confirmed Information from a Dispatch-System to the Translation Tool whenever mods change the status in the Dispatch-System to "translate". As soon as the mods of the Translation Tool switch the finished translation to "Done", the Dispatch system fetches the transaltion and maybe sends it to an indymedia server. This can be done through XMP-RPC. ( Working )

• Another idea is to interchange postings with the global indymedia site. Features that shall be translated on indy.global could be sent to the TranslationTool, where coodinated translations tale place. After a translation is finished it shall be sent back to indy.global and be attached to corresponding original article. All this should be done with xml-rpc (or http / cgi) maybe using send-buttons in the admin interface of "mir" and/or the translation tool. ( Working )

RSS/RDF Syndication

• Replace the Global Features News-feeds by the center column news of indy.global (Waiting for implementation of the corresponding RSS-Feed on mir)

• Replace the german news-feed in the upper right corner on the start page by some other news feed (www.indymedia.org?) DONE

• • The RDFSummary-Product is going to be installed in the near future. It will support this DONE

• Include To-do rss-feeds on the startpage of your imc

• Produce more rss-feeds (eg. language-specific, subject specific) DONE
  • http://translations.indymedia.org/Translations/rdf/rdfform
  • http://translations.indymedia.org/News/1058320009/index_html

email-notification

• send emails to different translation work lists, depending on languages ( Done )
  • (This is DONE at least if you think of Bloglet ( http://www.bloglet.com ) and its ability to send emails with RSS-feeds input)
  • The notification mechanism is corrupted somehow. Hoping to fix it with upgrading to squishdot 1.5.0 Upgraded and fixed

User interface / internationalization

• The Graphical User Iterface (GUI) should be translated for multiple languages. English, German, French, Portiguese, Norwegian and Spanish is almost finished, Italian will be next. ( Ongoing effort )

• It would be nice if you could switch to your preferred language and have this setting stored in a cookie so you don't have to switch again next time you visit the site. Done
  • You can already switch to different browser languages using a mozilla extension -> the server tries to give back the GUI-phrases in your browser language. more ...
  • but yes, a link to switch directly would be fine Done