Languages

[LegionWM]

Yeah - to be honest I take it on the chin that I didn't even ask & shop around before creating the account, but it seems at least for the other installations I worked on - that were in place when I got there - that 32MB is pretty common for cheap hosting packages (e.g. $5/month or less).

[Michael]

There's a reason why they're cheap. Let me guess, they offer unlimited space and unlimited bandwidth too, right?

[bfarber]

Wow, this discussion exploded today didn't it?

I think we need to get back to basics and address some of things said in this topic, both true and untrue.

Firstly, while we would love to offer IPB native to every language on the planet, it's simply not realistic. Most of us cannot speak any languages other than English, hiring official translators would be expensive (and yes, those costs would need to be recouped somehow) and the multiple attempts at an international program have not worked out well (we have tried on more than one occasion to initiate such a program, but for whatever reason things don't end up working too well). I realize none of this is "your problem", but I'm just pointing out some of the realities of the matter. It's not that we don't WANT to offer you language packs, we just don't have the capability to do so at this time, and this is the reason we encourage all members who translate IP.Board to share their language pack in the resource area for others.

Facebook started AFTER IPS and they have over 100 languages. Shameful in retrospect.

This is a horrible comparison. Facebook is one managed website, where-as we make multiple distributable products. Yes, Facebook can hire someone to come in for a couple of days and translate the site, then leave. There are small fixed costs to something like that. We would not be able to do the same thing, however, because we routinely make new releases to the public that have to be maintained.

The old forum I came from simple machines is free and they offer about 20 languages.

Do they do the translations in-house, or rely on the community for the translations? I suspect it's the later, and there's nothing wrong with that. We do the same, and have 57 entries in the Language Packs category.

Michael, please refer to my post #6 above, to list of notes here and try starting from responding to these:

- http://community.inv..._1#entry1945169

- http://community.inv..._1#entry1996113

- http://community.inv..._1#entry1771380

What is the other way to work with you guys? No one did even care to respond to me since 29th of July. I don't see any sense in continuing contibuting.

This is a fair enough post, Mikhail, and these things are on our internal to-do list to address in 3.2.

There are tons of Topics (and Problems) in the feedback forums and almost no reaction from IPS.

I know about sooooooo many problems, like...

* ACP not fully translatable

* Helpfiles not translatable

* problems with im/export of application languagepacks (overwrites ALL languagepacks, ...)

* languagepacks are for many hosts to big to import...

* and, and, and...

And all of that posted on the feedback forum (e.g. HERE). And whats the reaction from IPS? Nothing...Then IPS do not be surprised, if (new) Customers think, that IPS would not have international (new) Customers. That all is not a good "support" for international markets and you cant become a big international customer base with those problems.

The ACP is fully translatable, except for the left-hand navigation menus, and the text stored in the database. I think we should stop, and remember that just a year or two ago NONE of the ACP (at all) was translatable. We are making improvements and will continue to do so, but we need to balance the work we do in every area vs customer needs and that means that we can't stop everything and focus just on internationalization (just like we can't stop and focus just on Facebook integration, or making it easier for developers to use the software, or any other one particular "thing" that is needed or wanted).

Helpfiles we can look into something. We cannot just move them to language packs - for the VAST majority (and I mean VAST) of our customers, they use one language, usually English, and aren't adept to edit language packs - however they are fully capable of loading up the "Help files" form and editing what is there, or adding new help files. We cannot make it more difficult to use just so that it can be translated for the few sites that support more than one language. That said, there are other solutions we can look into.

The same goes for the settings, and those are harder to address...

Now, as far as problems importing/exporting language packs, those are issues we need to address, and will. We have continued to work on the language extraction (if you look through the bug reports I personally submit, you'll see 9/10 times it's language bits that haven't been abstracted that I want to make sure are) and will continue to do so.

[IPBSupport.de]

The ACP is [color="#ff0000"]NOT[/color] fully translatable, [color="#ff0000"]except[/color] for the left-hand navigation menus, [color="#ff0000"]and[/color] the text stored in the database.

Just changed your Post to the real facts. You can still talk it nice, but its not nice. The navigation (and some more other stuff like configuration entrys stored in the database) are very important stuff for users who cant speak/read english. When you look into a ACP (and cant speak/read english) and see the navigation and almost all configuration entrys in english, you must stop work (or you need help). And yes, there are a lot of people who cant speak/read english and thats a fact (why they dont buy IP.Board).

I know your hard work on the "new ACP" (translatability), Brandon. But absolutely no understanding why you put so important things to .xml-Files or databases. When you (or someone else) develope a "new" Feature (or Software) you should (must) be careful with those things. I dont know the reason why you do that (not much time should be no reason, because now you have more work to change it). I can only suspect that there is a mistake/bug in development and it was not just observed to put all (important) things to languagefiles.

Same with some other stuff you still put in the database (like Board Guidelines, Registration Terms & Rules, Login Page Information, Registration Form Inforegister informations). When you support a international community, you must say to all users "please go there, go there, go there, ... and change the textarea content to the german translation to have all translated. ALL users ask know: "Why (it is so complicated) to change all things to german?". And yes, i can understand them. When i install a "new" language to some other softwares (not only communitysoftwares) all is translatable. You must not go and search for all areas in the ACP to make your installation fully translated.

All of that is a basic problem by IPS: You say, there are not enough people (customers) who need those things, and i say: OK, i can understand it. Why? When you make so big mistakes (for you and other only english speaking people not a big problem) a international (new) customer think about to buy IP.Board - and at the end the (new) customer buy a other (fully translatable and supported) product in his native language. Thats a big customer base you loose from the beginning. And when you still and over and over again say "Its not a Problem" or "There are not many customer who need those things" you cant become more customer (who need those things).

YOU (IPS) must begin to add more internationalized features and make it "easier" for german and other international (new) customers to think "Yes, i will buy IP.Board". And i know, you can do it - when you will.

[Charles]

I believe we are going in circles here. As Brandon said, we continue to improve language support in each version of the product. It's an ongoing process. I don't think we need to rehash the same points over and over :)

Language support will continue to improve in IPB with each version as it always has.