Translation guide
From the CouchSurfing Wiki, an informal workspace which anyone can edit.
(Redirected from Translations guide)
- Translation - Translation guide - Missing languages - Multilingual
Vision: This page is meant to collect the experience and know-how of all CSers involved with the translations process. A working guideline from the very first steps to the expert/supervision level.
Please think of all the questions and problems you first had when you started and all the questions you keep hearing over and over again. Think of the bugs you are facing now. Enter them all here!! And if you know an answer, enter it here, just as well. Thank you loads, and keep up the good work. Let's make it easier for each other in the future. --Kaoxoni 17:05, 1 March 2007 (EST),
- This article is a stub. You can help by expanding it.
Contents |
New Team Members
- Introduce yourself to your language team
- Get familliar with the team structure
- Get familliar with the Translation Tool
- Find out if your team has a wiki page
Translators
Screenshot
- What is a screenshot ?
- A screenshot is a copy of what is on your computer screen at a certain moment.
- Why make a screenshot ?
- If you are working and notice a bug, it's one of the best way to show others exactly what's happening on your computer. Things might appear differently on other system, so a picture is worth a thousand words!
- How to make a screenshot in Windows ?
- Use the PrtScn (Print Screen) key. When you hit the key, it copies an image of your screen in the "clipboard". If you just want to have an image of the program window (not your whole desktop), hold Alt + PrtScn.
- The image is then ready to be pasted into any graphics program. You can use "Paint" for it (in your Start Menu > Accessories > Paint).
- Once in Paint, press Ctrl-v . This pastes the image in the program.
- Go in File > Save and choose where you wish to save it. Please change the file type to JPEG or GIF as it takes less space and is quicker to transfer.
- Your image is ready to be used either in Mantis or to be sent to translations at couchsurfing dot com
- How to make a screenshot in Mac ?
- Use Cmd + Shift + 3 to print the entire desktop
- Cmd + Shift + 4 will allow you to drag the area that you what to take the screenshot
- Cmd + Shift + 4 then hit the Space bar will show you a camera as icon, and it allows you to make an entire application window as an image, even if it's in the background
- All images will be in PNG format, to change just open in Preview and save as the format you prefer. To add the image into the web, just choose one of the dozens free image host websites like www.imageshack.com and then use the URL of the image in your posts using the html tag IMG.
More information on Apple's Tutorial page [1]
Using variables
Each time you see in a fragment something between ${ and }, it's a variable and you have to keep it like that, but you can place it somewhere else in the translated text of the fragment.
Example:
"Back to ${user_name}'s profile"
Translated (french):
"Revenir sur le profil de ${user_name}"
On the website, it'll show:
Original: "Back to Pierre GADNON's profile" Translated (french): "Revenir sur le profil de Pierre GANDON"
If you need to use a variable in a fragment that doesn't have any, please post about it in the Translation - General group.
Where and how to to post what?
Translation General
| Tool ideas | You can start the topic with [Opinions] and give a general title, then give out clearly your idea. Try to make it easy for people to understand what you mean, and make it open to debate! |
| Bugs | Start the thread with [BUG] so that the techie can spot them easily. Give a lot of details, send a screenshot to translations at couchsurfing dot com if possible. By describing to bug accurately you speed up the resolution process! |
| Variable requests | Start the thread with [Variable] to make them easy to spot |
| Useful training info | Start the thread with [How-to] to make them easy to spot |
| General interest | Concerns, ranting, compliments... go for it! |
Language Sub-group
- translations issues
- request for help over translating
- discuss regional variations
- socializing !
Reporting a bug
You can either choose to report it in the group or use Mantis
Language Team Leader Group
Language Team Leaders are gathered together in a separate group where they co-build the team with the Co-Coordinators. You can have a look at the discussions, as they are public :
Team working
Here are some methods of how language teams have been organizing themselves:
- Make a list of what is left to translate and to give priority to some texts/pages:
- what should be done (soon)
- what can wait (not so important pages)
- what can be left out for now (pages that does not exist or are not yet available to translate- quite a lot of them)
- Ask the translators to post which pages they picked and to come back and post again saying they where ready and done with them.
- Choose a translator with a good knowledge of the language to do the last check of the others, instead of translating him-/herself [2]
- The Language Team Leader (LTL) will:
- prepare each new page with one of the translators, then report all bugs found inside this page.
- when the page seems ready, post in the group giving a deadline (7-15 days) to get consensus
- include modifications suggested by the group
- keep track of the discussions by adding updates to the Team's wiki page [3]
New Team Leaders
- Introduce yourself in your sub-group and in the Language Team Leader group
- Improve volunteer coordination [4] by making the transition between a "container" group towards a "working" group. A way to do it is to contact members of the group individualy and:
- Thank them for their interest and/or past involvment
- Explain that the team is becoming active and that they are invited to contribute
- Give them links to the wiki page and invite them to explore the Translation tool again
- Give a clear deadline for a reply from them before removing anybody from the group. Be generous on the deadline: 3 weeks seems reasonable.
- Don't forget that these are all potential and/or former volunteers and they deserve recognition and respect. Write emails like you would like to receive in that context
Team Leaders
Useful Documents
Varia
- Language Ninja
- The language ninja is a set of permissions on Couchsurfing that allows some controls in the Translation tool: locking pages, rebuilding pages, updating languages, publish the website in a language, to hide some languages from translation, etc.
- Rebuilding
- Rebuilding is a function of the Translation Tool. It is the action of taking away all the outdated fragments from a page and linking all the new ones so that translators only translate what is really needed on the page. The current system has known flaws: rebuilding is done manually, it's hard to know which page has been updated recently and some pages can't be seen by translators or ninjas, especially the sign up pages.
- Mantis
- Mantis is the bug tracking tool. It's the best way to communicate with the Tech Team! Please put extra care in your communication there as it has to be extra clear. Feature requests should be discussed in the group before being put on Mantis
[Category:Documents] [Category:Translation]
