Launchpad Translations GSoC projects

Wed Mar 24 14:53:19 UTC 2010

Hi all,

In Ubuntu we've got an amazing translations community. Every day
hundreds of translators use Launchpad Translations as a tool to make
Ubuntu available in almost any language.

As such, I'm thrilled to announce a set of GSoC projects focused on
Launchpad Translations and aimed towards improving the Ubuntu
translations community experience.

Here they are:

== Package set views in Launchpad Translations ==

Currently we expose the full list of translations in the main archive to
Ubuntu translators. This is generally overwhelming for new translators
and it does not show accurate statistics on how well translated a
distribution is. It would be useful to have a global view of projects or
modules which would only include the templates which are part of them
(e.g. Ubuntu, Kubuntu, UNR, or even further granularisation in
subprojects or most important upstreams: GNOME, KDE, etc.). This could
be e.g. modelled after the package sets already available from
Launchpad.

== Full Launchpad Translations API ==

The aim of this project is to implement a full API for the Launchpad
Translations component. This will allow accessing translations-related
data from Launchpad through launchpadlib. The API can be subdivided in
several components (e.g. reporting -already being developed-, imports
queue, translations, etc.) and will open the door to a broad range of
uses of Launchpad Translations: more automated management of Ubuntu
translations, automated status tracking of imports by users, client-side
online translation, navigation of the site in custom applications,
requesting downloads, fetching individual messages or suggestions, etc.

== Native support for OpenOffice.org translations format in Launchpad
Translations ==

Launchpad Translations standardizes on using the Gettext PO format for
importing and exporting translations. While this covers the majority of
Open Source projects supporting localization, there are a couple of
notable exceptions. These implement custom formats and cannot be
directly imported or exported. Open``Office.org is one of them. Its
custom GSI/SDF translation format needs to be converted to gettext
before importing it into Launchpad. This causes quite a lot of packaging
overhead and manual work, and the translations cannot use the language
pack infrastructure. Due to this, we had to recently disable
Open``Office.org translations in Launchpad. We want Ubuntu translators
to be able to translate Open``Office.org in Launchpad as any other
Ubuntu package and to be able to contribute translations back to
upstream. The aim of this project is to implement native support for
importing and exporting Open``Office.org's GSI/SDF translation format.

== Full native support for Mozilla translations format in Launchpad
Translations ==

Launchpad Translations standardizes on using the Gettext PO format for
importing and exporting translations. While this covers the majority of
Open Source projects supporting localization, there are a couple of
notable exceptions. These implement custom formats and cannot be
directly imported or exported. Firefox uses the custom XPI translations
format and is one of them. While native import support is already
implemented and functional, translations are currently exported in an
intermediate format and the conversion back to XPI is done outside of
Launchpad. We want the Ubuntu Mozilla translations to be exported in
native format and be able to use them directly in language packs and
allow contributing the translations back to upstream. The aim of this
project is to complete the support for the Mozilla translation format
and enabling native export.

== Native support for XML documentation in Launchpad Translations ==

Launchpad Translations standardizes on using the Gettext PO format for
importing and exporting translations. This generally covers the majority
of Open Source projects supporting localization, but only their user
interface. Documentation is generally produced in other formats (mostly
docbook) and must be converted to the Gettext PO format before importing
it into Launchpad and converted back to XML upon export. This additional
step, generally performed by tools such as `xml2po` or `po4all`
currently stops us from importing documentation of upstream projects for
translation in Launchpad in Ubuntu. The aim of this project is to
implement native XML support for translatable documentation in Launchpad
Translations, so that it can be seamlessly imported and exported.

== Adding POT template generation support for layouts other than
intltool in Launchpad Translations ==

Upstream integration is the current development focus in Launchpad. To
that end, the Launchpad Translations component is being extended to
enable translation imports directly from bzr branches of upstream
projects. One important aspect of this feature is the automatic
regeneration of POT translation templates from the branches, which is
implemented using what is internally called the pottery infrastructure.
Pottery currently supports the intltool layout, which already covers a
great number of Open Source projects. However, there will still a
percentage of upstream projects which do not follow this standard
intltool layout. The aim of this project is to extend pottery to support
additional formats, so that the maximum number of upstreams can be
imported into Launchpad Translations.

Danilo Šegan, the Launchpad Translations team lead, will be the mentor
for these projects, but you can use me as a backup contact as well,
especially this week, as Danilo is a away on a coding sprint.

So here's your chance of joining the team of Launchpad developer legends
and making the Ubuntu translation experience even more awesome.
If you are wondering what all this is about, here is some content to get
you started on Launchpad development:

    https://dev.launchpad.net/Getting
    https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/devweek1001/LPTranslate
    https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperWeek/Sessions/LaunchpadTranslationsUnderTheHood

And if you've got any questions, feel free to ask!

You'll find all of the information you need on Ubuntu's participation in
GSoC 2010 at:

    https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GoogleSoC2010

Regards,
David.

[1] https://launchpad.net/~danilo

-- 
David Planella
Ubuntu Translations Coordinator
david(dot)planella(at)ubuntu(dot)com
www.ubuntu.com

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