Lack of translations

[Tom S.]

The amount of translation options here are really lacking.

https://invisioncommunity.com/files/category/161-translations/

There is no French, Chinese or Hindi for example. These are major languages, and should really be offered.

For example MyBB have a much more exhaustive list:

https://community.mybb.com/mods.php?action=browse&category=19

I understand that it's a community driven thing, however I think IPS should try and create more of an incentive for people to create and support translations.

Surely, this would open the product up to more markets...

[AndyF]

This was something that I was actually considering a topic about myself in the New Year (and something else as well but I'll save that for now as its not related) , as you say and as I would of said its mainly community driven aka clients who speak those languages and want to create any language packs can distribute them via the Marketplace. My thoughts on this were along the lines of what used to be 'community developers' however that idea would at a minimum (if it was considered) need much detailed fleshing out. Although I'm not 'staff' this is likely something I could assist with. time permitting if the need arose***

I'm not sure there would be any erm 'demand' for say IPS to hire professionals or otherwise offer some kind of incentive for clients to create translations then offer them either as paid or free in the MP, as they would eventually require updating as language strings changed over time. I'm hoping a member of staff will reply to this topic at some convenient point.

The tools in IPS4 compared to previous versions are very much vastly improved / better for this purpose for both initial creation and updating, and I think IPS does deserve some extra credit here for what I'd personally consider 'extra steps' to make it much easier, also it means a community admin who does not want to spend too long in the Lang Manager itself can now easily change words via the front end (quick translating) something that should be applauded.

I guess all I'm saying as you know is its up to the community to create them

*** Not the actual 'translation' , I meant assisting in organisation, throwing ideas about and the like.

 

[Joel R]

Some thoughts:

1. What kinds of incentives are you thinking about IPS offering? In the case of MyBB, they're giving away their software for free. So you can say that their incentives are no pay, no professional support, no enterprise development in exchange for a dozen language packs.  Not sure that's a good trade off.  I know I'm being facetious here but ... also kind of truthful.  

2.  I looked at the list from MyBB.  Some of the files haven't been updated since 2015.  I suppose if IPS was still on one major version for 3+ years, it would accumulate a few more files too. 

3. Some of the language packs in the IPS Marketplace might have been available before but got hidden during the Great Purge that hid all pre-4.3 files.  

[AndyF]

1. I have some thoughts on this but its obviously not up to me! 😄 , I'd not personally want to suggest a free licence though. If you did want me to suggest something then perhaps some kind of free extension or suchlike (adding x months on) , really this is all (the whole topic) something for senior staff and management to digest after the holidays. There's obviously a few things to consider here, not to mention the 'demand' or lack of for said language packs. I'm not actually aware of the level of demand for them.

2. Difficult to say as each platform is slightly different in how often they update with minor and major versions and also you need to factor in when they are 'officially supported' or not. By this I simply mean if say 4.0.x was still supported here officially then lang packs should probably exist here for it. Hopefully that makes sense. I can expand on this if needed. 🙂

3. That's the thing, the authors were given reasonable/plenty of notice to update them to indicate their compatibility. I'm going to tell you this was something I long wanted to do! You may recall a long time ago on the 2x series we tried dropdowns for compatibility but given the slight erm 'separation' of the versions of the official addons compared to the core aka 'forums' back then, it did not work too well. Now that is not a problem as the apps are (or should be) in sync with the 'core' itself. 🙂 

I do have further thoughts but I'd rather wait for hopefully some kind of official reply before posting them, either in this topic or privately. As previous I'm still happy to help out where I can, time permitting.

[MMXII]

Creating translations of the Invision Community is not that easy... and IPS, at least so far, does not really do anything to improve in this field. My guess is that translations are not very important to them because they sell most licenses to English-speaking customers.

Here are some examples of issues that I have with translations:

1. Cost-intensive I: You need to own all apps to be able to create a complete translation.
2. Cost-intensive II: You need to have an active license to stay up-to-date and to release files in the marketplace.
3. Lack of comfort I: The options in the AdminCP regarding translations are very limited (e.g. no tracking of language string changes across versions, no export of certain language strings only... there are tons of suggestions in this feedback forum)
4. Lack of comfort II: For some reason I do not know IPS decided to "shred" their language strings into pieces. Many strings are a combination of placeholders plus text plus more placeholders and text. And the worst part: a complete sentence in the frontend can consist of 3, 4, maybe 5 of these cobinations. While this seems to work with the English version, you have a serious problem to create good translations in other languages, especially those where rules regarding grammar, cases, declension etc. are more complex.

[AndyF]

I think that is good feedback. Reason being: If there are issues/concerns with translating then IPS needs to know what the actual issues are and/or how they can look to improve them in future versions, ideally with suggestions. Those doing the translations are likely best placed to offer said suggestions/feedback.

The versioning control you mention would well qualify for an improvement suggestion I think.

 

There is a slight quandary (if that is the right word here) for language translation generally in that the way sentences are constructed are likely to vary so it is not by its nature going to be an exact translation 'word for word' all the time.

For a random example, the word 'example' has a couple of spellings in German (apologies if there are mistakes here, I'm not a native German speaker!)

Ubersetzt , Wiedergeben , Ubersetzen , probably some more too. As far as I am aware without using a trans tool those are all reasonably valid.

 

All I'm trying to illustrate there is where there is a 'problem' translating because of the way the original English wording/sentence is constructed in itself, that is something IPS would probably like to know about.

As I mentioned in my first reply though, there are vast improvements to the 'Lang Manager' compared to future versions, so credit should be given to IPS for this. I'm not saying its perfect by any means (nothing in life ever is!) however feedback/suggestions will help them decided what needs to be done for further enhancements to it.

 

I think the best course now is to await a staff response after the holiday period. All feedback is read and digested I can assure you of that at least.

[Daniel F]

1 hour ago, MMXII said:

Lack of comfort II: For some reason I do not know IPS decided to "shred" their language strings into pieces. Many strings are a combination of placeholders plus text plus more placeholders and text. And the worst part: a complete sentence in the frontend can consist of 3, 4, maybe 5 of these cobinations. While this seems to work with the English version, you have a serious problem to create good translations in other languages, especially those where rules regarding grammar, cases, declension etc. are more complex.

Please feel free to report such issues as bugs. We'll of course adjust this if it's an easy and not BC ( Backward compatibility ) breaking change 🙂 At least I've done this in all the past tickets

[gabs007]

As I pointed out it another thread, for me the problem with language bits is how to know where they are used:  frontend, admincp or both. 
It would be easier to create translations if you knew exactly what's important and what it is not.

I like the admincp in English, because I can ask for help and offer help using a common language. But some bits are shared and I have language strings mixed in English and Spanish in the Admincp ... not a big deal, as long as I have the right word translated in the front end.

Also, If I could know exactly which bits belong to the front end, I would translate them quick and easy. 3 years after installing my first community I was still finding bits of language not translated. 🤦🏼‍♂️ mainly short words and prepositions. 

[A Zayed]

IIRC, There was a live translation script here in the early 3.x version, I hope I can see it again, but only available for certified translators.

[MMXII]

2 hours ago, Daniel F said:

At least I've done this in all the past tickets

I know and I highly appreciate that. 🙂

By now I have created a German translation of IPS 4.3.6, which I consider to be "very good". However it took me almost a year to get there (not working full-time on this of course) and many phrases have been heavily modified in order to achieve a high quality translation regarding grammar, punctuation, overall good wording, correct declensions and whatnot. I know it is not very likely to see huge improvements to the translation tools in the 4.x series, but I have to admit I strongly hope that 5.0 will pay more attention to this area.

[Joel R]

31 minutes ago, A Zayed said:

IIRC, There was a live translation script here in the early 3.x version, I hope I can see it again, but only available for certified translators.

Live translation tool is built-in to the suite! 

[A Zayed]

27 minutes ago, Joel R said:

Live translation tool is built-in to the suite! 

I wasn't clear in my wish, I mean the online tool here in IPS website, that allowed contributors from every where to translate the community to their language.

[Tom S.]

On 12/26/2018 at 2:27 AM, Joel R said:

What kinds of incentives are you thinking about IPS offering?

Translations should not come from the marketplace. The people that are posting free packages are hurting the production of translations. It might seem like a nice thing to do, but anyone that would be willing to create a translation and sell it cannot in fear of someone undercutting them in the future.

Just as an example, I had the idea of investing in creating a french translation of IPS for my community, which would be damn expensive, and then selling that translation here to make back some of the cost. But no way will I do that with the possibility of a week later someone releasing a free version.

An alternative could be to sell them as an addon with a fixed price by IPS when people buy their product, and can be clearly promoted on IPS's website as a feature.

IPS could do it themselves or offer a kind of partnership programme where translators can provide them with the translations and get a commission based on the sale of the translation addons.

Ideas off the top of my head:

• These translators would get early access to new string sets before new releases so that translations are available from day 1.
• There is a greater incentive here for translators as the returns will be much higher and secure as they don't have to worry about people offering translations for free in the marketplace.
• If a translator is unreliable they can be removed leaving space for a new translator to come in.
• Users can leave ratings on the quality of the translations

I'm sure there are problems with this idea, but I guess my main point is that the current eco system does not work well and a new one should be considered.

[Ramsesx]

On 12/25/2018 at 10:21 PM, Tom S. said:

Surely, this would open the product up to more markets...

Agree, it would increase their market share. vBulletin, the formerly leader in forum software, was great regarding translations. 

1 hour ago, Tom S. said:

An alternative could be to sell them as an addon with a fixed price by IPS when people buy their product, and can be clearly promoted on IPS's website as a feature.

IPS could do it themselves or offer a kind of partnership programme where translators can provide them with the translations and get a commission based on the sale of the translation addons.

On 5/13/2018 at 5:51 PM, Ramsesx said:

Or another idea for IPS, just create high quality translation files for all important languages, keep them updated and sell them for 50$.

[Adriano Faria]

1 hour ago, Tom S. said:

offer a kind of partnership programme where translators can provide them with the translations and get a commission based on the sale of the translation addons.

IPS did this a few years back, on IP.Board 3 early days. Worked for some months then they dropped it, don’t remember the reason.

———

Found some links; they’re all dead. They’re from 2011/2012.

[Tom S.]

On 12/27/2018 at 11:51 PM, Adriano Faria said:

IPS did this a few years back

I wonder what happened. Would be nice if they could bring back some kind of programme.

[AndyF]

6 hours ago, Tom S. said:

I wonder what happened. Would be nice if they could bring back some kind of programme.

On 12/25/2018 at 10:29 PM, AndyF said:

This was something that I was actually considering a topic about myself in the New Year (and something else as well but I'll save that for now as its not related)

I've not had chance to compose my thoughts on this yet, not to a degree where I can post them here or put them into a ticket for suggestion etc. The 'something else' is relevant here.

 

[Tom S.]

On 1/2/2019 at 9:57 PM, AndyF said:

The 'something else' is relevant here.

We gots to know! 😀

[AndyF]

1 hour ago, Tom S. said:

We gots to know!

I must admit my first thought on what to reply was "all good things come to those who wait" 😀 but...

I was actually planning on something for a ticket/private conversation rather than erm 'client consumption' as such although if I can properly formulate it into an easy to read and digest manner it is quite possible I could post it into the Client Lounge instead which thinking about it might not be a bad idea as then others can post their input/thoughts into it all too, regardless of if any of it is actually implemented or not it will no doubt provide very valuable feedback. 🙂

Time is against me at the moment to actually write anything though however I should be able to within a couple of weeks once I've researched a few things too. Homework etc 😉

[Peter Wagemans]

Sorry, my question is probably off topic, but I cannot find any topic that explains how this whole translation process works.

This morning I discover that some translation parameters have been scrambled on my Dutch forum.

I bought the Dutch translation XML file some time ago, and figured I could probably maintain it myself. So I download the file and look at the keys.

What strikes me now is that for "user_own_activity_item" the parameters are 2 times "%s". But still, in the translation the topic adds the user, which is rather silly.

I wonder where all the documentation is. This little issues are easy to fix, but it helps to know the rules.

Again, sorry for being off topic, please point me to the right location on this forum for documentation.

[tigerhome de]

I have the same Problem (and more) like Peter in German.

 

[Daniel F]

There's unfortunately no documentation. You'll have to look at the source code where the language strings are used to see the parameters.

I have made some internal suggestions to improve this in a future version.

[opentype]

16 minutes ago, Peter Wagemans said:

What strikes me now is that for "user_own_activity_item" the parameters are 2 times "%s".

I’m not sure I get it. What strikes you about that? “%s” just means a different phrase gets fed in. That can happen multiple times. 

[Peter Wagemans]

Kudos to the guys who create these translation files. And thanks for making that internal suggestion.

@opentype : the only way to correct the misplaced parameters is to rephrase the translation. Since swapping %s with %s obviously will do nothing to solve the problem.

[Meddysong]

This might help you if the issue is that the English ordering doesn't work for Dutch and German. It's possible to change the which of the %s is fed first: