On Aug 14, 2007, at 9:01 PM, Frank Peters wrote:
Jean-Christophe Helary wrote:
On a slightly different topic, is there a chance that the
translation workflow for OOo's help files will become all XML
based and not have to go through the SDF conversion in the future ?
That would be so much easier to have files directly in XLIFF (and
then eventually in PO for PO users). The current process: XML->SDF-
>PO(->XLIFF) puts all the XML non translatable code inside the
translatable strings and that is very unfriendly (to say the
least) to the translator.
I am unhappy with the translation process, too. I would prefer if
the translation could be performed on a per file basis on the XML
format. This way, it would be much easier to keep the context, too.
I understand that tools like Pootle are important for managing
localizer communities but in terms of translation proper I think the
NetBeans approach is much better for translating documentation: all
the translations use the source files and not a concatenation of
diffs (or equivalent) and the translator has then access to the whole
context.
It is possible to translate either directly (with tools like OmegaT
that work with source files) or indirectly (after a clean conversion
to XLIFF, in OLT or other XLIFF editing CAT tools) and with the
relevant TMX files all the legacy work can be leveraged
automatically. People who still want to work with PO can use
appropriate conversion tools and work in their favorite PO environment.
Jean-Christophe
