Translation: Proving Complicated
Editor's note: Joachim appreciates this may be a bit of a rant, and hopes people who read this and know more about the translation of Drupal than he will contribute via the Comments and tell him why he's being an idiot. But we decided to run with it because he makes some really valid points. I don't know if the translation interface was a part of the UI work for Drupal 7, but reading Joachim's experiences, I would hope so!
Rant starts here:
As a native English speaker, I've never had to do anything with translations. Until I decided yesterday to do something about Ubercart telling my clients about 'checks' all the time.
This is surely just a matter of making a British English translation file for Ubercart, submitting it, and we're home. Simple, no? No.
First, I've no idea even where to begin making a PO file. Or where to post it: I recently had a PO file submitted to one of my modules and at the time couldn't find any instructions on what to do with it (poke it with a stick? feed it toast?), but back then I was told to just put it in my module's /translation subfolder. That's simple, and the documentation now tells you to do that. So I created an issue on Ubercart only to be told to go to localize.drupal.org.
So having a PO file to install, what do I do? There seem to be no clear step-by-step instructions in the d.org Getting Started documentation that begin 'So you want your Drupal to talk another language? Start here!'
The locale module UI confuses me. Go see 'admin/build/translate' for yourself. 'This page provides an overview of available translatable strings.' What? If we don't say 'node' in the UI, why are we saying 'string'? What's an 'available translatable string'? Available to whom? What about 'translatable'? Surely my PO file is translaTED strings. What do I do with those?
Turns out en-gb isn't in the list. Adding a language wasn't too hard until I was asked for 'path prefix' and 'language domain'. I have no idea what those mean, except that I HAVE to specify ONLY ONE and there is SCARY TEXT telling me BAD THINGS CAN HAPPEN.
One final thing: I can't seem to untick 'English' from the languages list. Does that mean a regular user will see a very silly option to have the site in either English or British English? What's with that then?
I realize that translating an application is a complicated business, with many interacting parts. But surely it could be made simpler for someone who just wants to install a site in another language?
Drupal Translation
This is a really useful starting point to a translation as it tells you which phrases are available for translation (or string override).one thing: translation issues *always* turn out to be quite complicated. Drupal might have the best solution in any open software, and if you need more features your only alternative is the 250k+ price tag for a commercial solution.
To turn of the default
To turn of the default english, you need to set en-gb as the default, then disable en. You can't remove it completely though.
It *is* frustrating
Joachim you are so right! And anyone who says it's your fault b/c you're a newbie is full of shyte (is that the proper en-gb spelling?). That's like saying it's the user's fault that the software is hard to use.
I'm pulling my hair out and going nuts trying to have my site in two languages and I feel your pain. There is very little documentation and I have the feeling there are even some bugs/inconsistencies in Drupal that are making this much more difficult than it needs to be.
If it helps I've found the modules below to be useful but even then, they don't always work:
http://drupal.org/project/translation_table
http://drupal.org/project/l10n_server
http://drupal.org/project/i18n
"Strings"
The word "string" is actually used in the translation world (and not only in English) :-)
But if I'm just some dude
But if I'm just some dude wanting to install Drupal in French, I'm not in the translation world, am I?
Checkout the potx module
The potx module exports pot files from existing Drupal code
This is a really useful starting point to a translation as it tells you which phrases are available for translation (or string override).
translation
This rant is just simple questions of first time user. My general answer is: these problems are solved and documented, you need to learn it. If something is not good enough then help changing it.
There are much larger problems with Drupal translation, with building multilingual Drupal sites.
Agreed; these are the
Agreed; these are the questions of a first-time user. And the answers should be in plain view, either in the d.org documentation or the UI, or both. There shouldn't BE a learning curve for a task this basic.
And yes, I plan to give the same task a whirl on D7 and file bugs for the things that trip me up.
I am not familiar with Drupal
I am not familiar with Drupal i18n details anymore, since my last projects were non-Drupal. But I plan to come back soon.
Just one thing: translation issues *always* turn out to be quite complicated. Drupal might have the best solution in any open software, and if you need more features your only alternative is the 250k+ price tag for a commercial solution.
String overrides
Hia, this have made me crazy at times too - I've found out the easiest way in many cases has been to use the String overrides module.
Hi! Glad it's not just
Hi! Glad it's not just me!
The reason I thought to embark on an en-gb translation is that it seems silly for every single UK-based Ubercart site to do the string overrides -- surely we could streamline this into a simple translation for download! That was my hope at least :)
One way to change default
One way to change default text strings in Drupal or Ubercart is to use the stringoverrides module. You don't have to go the whole hog with translation.
it is confusing
Yeah, it is confusing and it gets very little attention. We need people like you who are coming fresh to make suggestions and submit issues to improve the UI. Others had similar first time feelings then got over it without writing a blog post, so the UI is still the same.
Hi Gabor! Is it a good idea
Hi Gabor!
Is it a good idea to file UI bugs about my cluelessness at various points in the task?
I can go have a play with D7 at some point.
yes
Yes, it's always a good idea to file bugs and feature requests. Unless they've already been filed.. :)
Also, you don't need to go anywhere near .po files with the new system, you can do it all at e.g.: http://localize.drupal.org/translate/languages/en-gb/edit
You can even filter by project, and search strings by content. Check the en-gb suggestions, I just dumped a bunch :)
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