Idea for NSIS wiki - NSIS Forums

Aaron's rod
8th October 2005 15:39 UTC

Idea for NSIS wiki
Adding all the language files to the wiki so that anyone could edit them in the wiki interface would be great. This way if the language files changes in some way the wiki would be fast way to get the latest language files if the offical release don't have the latest versions with them. Also the developers could uptade the language files, so someone could translate the new language entries before the offical release.

Also the wiki language files could be kept separate from the offical language files (what gomes with NSIS) until there would be enough improvements in the wiki version.

The only minus I see in this is that the wiki admins would have hard time to recognize vandalism written in different language.

I know that I could just add the language files to the wiki my self, but I want to ask your opinion first and I don't know how to do this properly. :)

Comm@nder21
8th October 2005 17:50 UTC

why not simply checkout the cvs repository to a local directory, and use scons to build your own version?
if you want to keep at a stable release, simply just update the language files directory.
so much easier ...

kichik
8th October 2005 17:57 UTC

The only minus I see in this is that the wiki admins would have hard time to recognize vandalism written in different language.

Not only that, but even bad translations done with good intentions can't be recognized. This has already happened more than a couple of times. Maybe it's possible to let everyone edit them, but require the official translator to give the final approval. This way, some work can be saved for the translator.

However, the translations aren't updated that often, so I'm not sure how useful it'd be to take the time and convert everything.

Aaron's rod
8th October 2005 23:57 UTC

@Comm@nder21
That wasn't my point.

Originally posted by kichik
Not only that, but even bad translations done with good intentions can't be recognized. This has already happened more than a couple of times. Maybe it's possible to let everyone edit them, but require the official translator to give the final approval. This way, some work can be saved for the translator.

However, the translations aren't updated that often, so I'm not sure how useful it'd be to take the time and convert everything.

Actually I think that the "wiki everyone can edit" idea would minimize the bad translations on the long-range and even better improve the already good translations. Of course like I wrote the wiki language files should't be included to the offical packages until they are proven to be better than old ones.

This could also help NSIS to get new translations what don't necessarily have any "official translator". This kind of translations could be kept in the wiki until they are proven to be good enough. And also unoffical translations is better than nothing. ;)

kichik
9th October 2005 13:55 UTC

If you're willing to help implementing this, I'm willing to give it a try. Have a talk with deguix about adding this to the Wiki. It should probably be in its own name space, something like Translations. There's also a problem with encoding. It should all be UTF-8 in the Wiki, but in the NSIS package, the language's code page should be used. But that should only be taken care of, if it succeeds.

deguix
9th October 2005 15:44 UTC

Well, the idea goes to a direction where the NSIS distribution should be in the wiki. I think it would be good to have translations there, but wouldn't it be somewhat similar than having some contribution in the wiki translated to another language? I know, you asking only about language files. But think about after that, wouldn't you start thinking on translating other parts of NSIS itself?

The problem with this above is how to implement it without creating a lot of wikis just for NSIS contributions. I was thinking on putting prefixes to pages for a language, but the "nsis.sf.net/wiki/pt-br/Página Principal" syntax looks weird.

Anyways. If nobody accepts the idea, I can help you to put up the language files to the wiki. This won't be an automatic process though.

kichik
9th October 2005 16:00 UTC

I think we should take this one step at a time. Lets see how well this works for now, and only move forward to full translations of the Wiki if it works well.

Joost Verburg
9th October 2005 16:54 UTC

A system that allows more people to contribute translations would be a good thing.

But I don't think it would be a good idea to allow other languages in the Wiki. The main NSIS forum, the site, the wiki are all English. The NSIS project is not big enough to maintain this all in a number of different languages.

Almost everyone here understands English well enough to be able to use the information provided. If people submit contributions in their own language they will not be useful anymore for many people and you will get more and more outdated content.

deguix
9th October 2005 18:07 UTC

If people submit contributions in their own language they will not be useful anymore for many people and you will get more and more outdated content.

Hmmm... to make content to be the most updated possible I could maybe make the code to be only in English for all languages... Hmm... The revisions feature would be most useful if that was applied only if the page using the code is newer. The only problem that I see in this is about the code comments, which would only be in English.

But I don't think it would be a good idea to allow other languages in the Wiki. The main NSIS forum, the site, the wiki are all English. The NSIS project is not big enough to maintain this all in a number of different languages.

If this system would be applied, I wouldn't like to have any languages besides English at first. People should step up for the cause. If nobody does, then I won't do the same for them. I just wanted to have the ability to have this, but not necessarily to add languages. After a language is set up, people should request translations for NSIS stuff. If someone posts a new contribution in another language, then someone should request a translation to English for that.

However, this is just the big picture. I don't want to implement something that huge now. This is just to show that people from other languages have also some importance to NSIS.

Aaron's rod
11th October 2005 17:20 UTC

:up: The idea seems to got some attention.
I think we all agree that at least the language should be also in the wiki.

And I will help to implement this to wiki, if I can.

I'll get back to this with better time. :)

onad
12th October 2005 11:00 UTC

On http://www.multilizer.com/ you can find very valuble documentation how good translation managment could be performed. I see a dynamic DB with all languagestrings as a possible solution(A multilizer has). A voting system could be attatched if the is more than one word as translation, one could than downlaod a database dump as NSIS language file for the translation YOU wish to use.

Always imporant when translatin, keep the context in mind when altering a word. E.g the word "next" can be good in one context but wrong in another.

I think the current solution is not to bad. If I would have more time I would like to help, but I'm still spend al my NSIS time struggeling to get NSIS automated build on a FreeBSD platform... when that works I'll see what I can help with next.

{^trueparu_}
5th December 2005 20:47 UTC

*bumpity*

As it happens, the idea of adding this feature into wiki did not pan out, and so I'll just forget that it never exist :). (Mainly because of my lag of activity) I still think it's a good idea thou.