rosetta-users Digest, Vol 19, Issue 7

[Tim Morley]

> Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 20:10:05 +0300
> From: Mika Heiska <kilualmighty at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: removing/updating translator notes in Rosetta
>
> Jordi Mallach wrote:
>> It isn't possible, through the web interface. You can download the  
>> po file and do
>> it with a specialised PO editor.
>
> Either way, is there plans to implement such function in the  
> webinterface?

I mentioned this on the list once before, but since it's come up  
again, I'd like to add a big "YES PLEASE" from me too for this  
feature. The .po files we worked on before using Rosetta were  
liberally interspersed with comments from different members of the  
team, often giving references for a particular translation, or  
conversely saying, "Not sure what this should be, but here's my best  
guess."

That sort of information is vital to getting a good translation;  
without it were all just stabbing in the dark. Now, when I see a  
translation that looks doubtful to me, I've no idea whether it's a  
first guess or something that's been researched at great length, so I  
have to waste time researching it again myself. One quick example of  
this is the phrase "Cross-fade settings", which we originally  
translated as "the settings of the cross-fade function", but which  
someone changed to "these settings should be cross-faded". Now, the  
English is ambiguous, so which sounds like the more likely meaning to  
you? Well, the first sounded more likely to me, but I had to go away  
and research it... and it turns out that the second is actually  
correct.  :o(  It also turns out that two other members of the team  
did exactly the same bit of research to arrive at the same  
conclusion, but a one-line comment by any of us could have saved the  
others all that time.

This is just one string out of 60,000 -- there are potentially weeks  
of work being wasted through duplication of effort, because we can't  
add comments.  :o(

The UI elements can be lifted pretty much exactly from poEdit, which  
does this job nicely. It just requires an extra box, which could go  
next to the current text entry field so that each item occupies the  
same total area of screen.


Tim