New translation server online!

Categories: Community Created by Xavier Perseguers & Dominique Feyer

A BETA version of the new TYPO3 translation server, based on Pootle, is now online. Contributing to TYPO3 has never been so easy for non-developers. Don't wait any longer. Join us today!

 

We Are All Translators

This is a major step forward! The translation server now allows every community member to suggest new translations in any language. This has been made possible thanks to single sign-on authentication (SSO) between the Pootle translation server and the user accounts on typo3.org. Pootle is a user-friendly web portal that makes the translation process much simpler. It allows online translation, generates statistics, and makes volunteer contributions very easy.

If you encounter a mistake, or believe that certain text could be better translated, you can contribute by suggesting your corrections. The translation team will then validate your contributions as part of their translation review workflow. However, if you stumble upon something wrong and cannot find a proper, immediate alternative, just mark the corresponding string as fuzzy — this way, the rest of the team will realize that the translation should be reworked.

Translating is perhaps the easiest way to contribute to an open-source community and you will be surprised how many features are provided by Pootle to help you in this regard. Try it out today!

Inspire People to Translate

The XLIFF/Pootle project was first aimed at providing different translation teams with a better set of tools. It quickly became apparent that XLIFF could become the new translation format for both TYPO3 4.x and the upcoming version 5. Next week, starting with TYPO3 4.6 beta1, all translatable labels shipped with TYPO3 will be using the new file format. Tools will naturally be made available to help extension developers convert existing translations into Pootle-compatible files.

You may wonder how this impacts your TYPO3 4.5 LTS (or even older) installations. The answer is simple: Compatibility will be kept the same. The translation server is able to provide both new XLIFF-based translation and standard locallang.xml files, ensuring a complete compatibility with all TYPO3 installations.

XLIFF is a normalized translation format based on an XML structure. If working online with Pootle is not the best option for you, you may use offline tools or desktop applications such as <link http: translate.sourceforge.net wiki virtaal index _blank>Virtaal to improve your translation workflow and take advantage of advanced services such as translation memories.

In the near future we plan to use this process for both FLOW3 and the various documents of the documentation team as well.

Becoming Part of a Translation Team

If you are interested in being part of a translation team, please send an email to the official translation mailing list (typo3.translation.general) with your <link http: typo3.org _blank>typo3.orgusername and your preferred  language team.

You can also check the new translation team project on Forge. If you have any problem with the translation server, please open an issue on Forge:<link http: forge.typo3.org projects team-translation _blank>forge.typo3.org/projects/team-translation.

Improving the Quality

Pootle offers some great quality checks. At the moment, we have not activated all possible options and we still need to fine-tune the workflows by gathering feedback from early adopters. In fact, the next goal is to improve the global quality of the translation in TYPO3 by providing clear quality rules (with automatic validation) and a global terminology that will standardize the way we translate common terms.

As you will see, we have all embarked on a new journey and we are looking forward to seeing you on Pootle and in the translation mailing list.

Next step to participate is the translation team wiki:
<link http: forge.typo3.org projects team-translation wiki beta_pootle_server _blank>forge.typo3.org/projects/team-translation/wiki/Beta_Pootle_Server.