Site languages

[Horus68]

Please reinstate Portuguese (portugal) as a language for the Calibre site.
Now you have only a portuguese flavor (pt-BR for Brasil) but that's not a proper language for users from Portugal.

The site interface is translated to pt-PT in the relevant parts, excluding the changes on too old versions as this was considered not relevant for regular users.

Note; the changelog entries should also be in a different file (in transifex) so it would be easier to get more languages translated.

Some numbers: 700 of 1200 language entries are just changelog sentences... and almost 300 are just describing "previous major calibre releases" (including 0.6 stuff)

So real translation is actual small but translators are seeing an over sized large task to even start with it!
That's way Calibre site has only 8 languages when there are many more translated in Transifex.

[kovidgoyal]

Its automatic once translation level crosses a threshold. And there are only about two years worth of changes in the changelog, which is less than 20% of calibre's history.

[Horus68]

I don't agree with you.
The website file has 1284 entries (21985 words) in total. It contains all the words used in the Calibre site.
But only 21% are really useful when navigating the site.
So instead of asking for 21,985 total words to be translated , if someone translate just the proper 4,500 words the site interface will be fully navigated in a new language (except the "Old" new features page and the changelog page)


Explanation: The site has 3 main entries types considering its use (approximate calculations):

A - 272 entries (4545 words) - Should be translated!
Actual "useful" site interface entries.


B - 231 entries (6013 words) - no point to translate this!
Entries are for "New" functionalities (but actually they are from Calibre old versions... since 0.7 version).
This is just for history and could be in an archive non translated page!
Entries can be seen in pages like this:
https://calibre-ebook.com/new-in/seven
https://calibre-ebook.com/new-in/twelve
https://calibre-ebook.com/new-in/eleven
https://calibre-ebook.com/new-in/ten

C - 781 entries (11427 words) - no point to translate this.
Entries describes the bugs and features since release 3.0 visible in this page: https://calibre-ebook.com/whats-new
This is just for tech users not for main users. And its the main task here!
If someone is considering to start now to translate the website interface will not be amused to have to translate a description of a bug fixed in 16 Jun 2017!

[Horus68]

Calibre has a total of 20,305 entries to translate - considering all resources, including manual, server, main calibre and site.

Now look into the top 20 translated languages (picked as the languages that get most attention from translators) to see if they also get attention for the site translation.

If you see the website file stats you will see low numbers.
Low numbers will get lower in the future (more entries added in each release) and will get less attention from translators as the task gets bigger (when lots of entries are not relevant)

To motivate users to translate the website the total number of entries to translate (1,284 entries) should be lower as this is a work made for new users to profit, not actual power users (that focus into the Calibre interface and server... and some manual pages)


Site file translation of 1,284 entries https://www.transifex.com/calibre/calibre/website/

Languages not included in the Calibre site:
Portuguese = 31.78%
Czech = 17.29%
Dutch = 16.82%
Polish = 10.51%
German = 9.5%
Italian = 4.98%
Norwegian Bokmål = 3,58%
Chinese (China) = 1,56%
Malay = 1.25%
Turkish = 2.96%
Catalan = 1.79%
Icelandic = 0.78%
Galician = 0.78%

Almost very low number. And note those are in the top 20 most translated language for Calibre, all of them with more than 40% translated of the full 1,284 entries (21985 words).
It will be difficult to see some of those languages to be used in the Site!

And just to present all the numbers... languages used in the Calibre site:
Portuguese (Brazil) = 100%
Ukrainian = 100%
Spanish = 99.38%
French = 97.51%
Estonian = 51.48%
Swedish = 45.02%
Russian = 41.51
Chinese (Taiwan) = 21.5%

[kovidgoyal]

The changelog file is fairly constant in size. As new releases are made old ones are removed. So the task is not going to grow significantly bigger. And there is nothing preventing a translator from ignoring strings that are in changelog.yaml if they wish. Splitting it into a separate translation unit might certainly make the task seem smaller at first glance, but are translators really going to pick what they choose to translate based on a glance?

[Horus68]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Splitting it into a separate translation unit might certainly make the task seem smaller at first glance, but are translators really going to pick what they choose to translate based on a glance?

I believe they do! (on my experience as translator and project manager for different software translation using Transifex and Crowdin)
Translators often use a gamification with their selves to finish the work. Motivation is the key... "how many strings to end my task?"

We also need to take in consideration the impact of the work done.
Server file: 797 entries / 4,237 words
Site file: 1,284 entries / 21,985 words
- but considering that the 231 entries (6013 words) from the old features descriptions in the site file my work on those entries is less relevant than if doing the server entries. So the site file is left behind by many languages.


My point is not getting more work for you but to have more languages in the Calibre site.

[kovidgoyal]

Interesting, well open a aticket for it and I will look into it the next time I am in that area.