How to best get translations for new source tarball?

Thu Feb 23 18:46:02 UTC 2012

Hi David,

Sorry for the delay and thanks for your helpful reply.

On 20/02/12 10:35, David Planella wrote:
> Al 17/02/12 19:49, En/na Francesco Fumanti ha escrit:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Onboard is the on-screen keyboard shipping by default with Ubuntu; its
>> code is hosted on Launchpad and it is set to use the Ubuntu Translators
>> with a Structured policy for its translations.
>>
>> Thus, for each series, there are two sets of translations available: the
>> translations of the Upstream Project [1] and the translations of the
>> source package in Ubuntu [2].
>>
>> [1] https://translations.launchpad.net/onboard/0.97/+translations
>> [2]
>> https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/precise/+sources/onboard/+translations
>>
>>
>> Enabling sharing always means that the translations of [1] will be
>> forwarded to [2], but never from [2] to [1]; could you please confirm
>> that it is correct?
>>
>
> Hi Francesco,
>
> That's not entirely correct, and the good news is that sharing works in both ways, i.e. from [1] -> [2] (upstream -> downstream) and from [2] -> [1] (downstream -> upstream), if the right permissions are set.
>
> One of the important benefits about sharing is that upstream projects can benefit from the translations done in Ubuntu, which are then automatically done on their upstream projects too (and it also saves duplication of work from translators).
>
> Here's an example:
>
> - I've just translated this string:
> https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/precise/+source/onboard/+pots/onboard/ca/+translate?batch=10&show=all&search=_button+label
>
> - And it automatically got translated upstream:
> https://translations.launchpad.net/onboard/0.97/+pots/onboard/ca/+translate?batch=10&show=all&search=_button+label

This is really good news. I was deceived by the fact, that the last changed date of the po file is not updated when a string is updated through sharing. Otherwise, why did the date of the upstream catalan po file not change?
https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/precise/+source/onboard/+pots/onboard
https://translations.launchpad.net/onboard/0.97/+translations

I wonder, whether this should not be considered as a bug in launchpad!?

>> Moreover, setting Onboard to use the Ubuntu Translators specifies that
>> [1] should be translated by the Ubuntu Translators; it is not a setting
>> for [2] correct?
>>
>
> As the project maintainer, you can assign the translation group of the *upstream* project [1] to whichever available group you want. However, here are some recommendations.
>
> The most common ones are:
> - Launchpad Translators
> https://translations.launchpad.net/+groups/launchpad-translators
> - Ubuntu Translators
> https://translations.launchpad.net/+groups/ubuntu-translators
>
>  From a consistency point of view, Launchpad projects not related to Ubuntu should assign their translations to Launchpad Translators. However, some project maintainers prefer using Ubuntu Translators nevertheless, as it contains translation teams for more languages.
>
> The only caveat is with sharing: sharing only works if the translator is part of both groups - the one assigned for upstream and the one assigned for downstream.
>
> I generally recommend translation team leaders from the Launchpad Translators group to add the Ubuntu translations team to the corresponding Launchpad translations team, to make sure permissions work.
>
> For the *downstream* project [2], translations are _always_ assigned to the Ubuntu Translators translation group.

Thanks for the piece of information that the translator has to be a member of the downstream and upstream translation team for sharing to work correctly. And this is the case for Onboard, because downstream and upstream uses the same translation team.

>> Though I assume that [2] is also always translated by the Ubuntu
>> Translators; correct?
>>
>
> That's correct, yes.
>
>> When I look now at [1] and [2] that were recently created, I notice that
>> there are new translations in [2] and not in [1]. Thus, does it make any
>> sense in this project to consider the translations done in [1]?
>
> Could you please point us to which translations? This way we'll be better able to help you.

In fact, I was only looking at the dates under the "last changed" column and since the dates downstream were more recent than upstream, I wrongly deduced that there was no from downstream to upstream. (I did not look at specific strings.)

>> Assuming that I have to release a tarball, how should I know whether to
>> use the translations from [1] or [2]? Would it make sense to do the
>> following: create a new po file for each language from [1] and [2] with
>> the following rule: get the translations from [2] and for the strings
>> that have no translations in [2], use the translations in [1] if they
>> exist. (I assume that the translations in [2] are more trustworthy than
>> the translations in [1] as they are prepared to be shipped in the Ubuntu
>> language packs.) Could you tell me the command to do that operation if
>> it exist and if it makes sense doing it?
>>
>
> It should all be much simpler: you've got all correct settings for translations, you only need one last bit - automatically export translations.
>
> So if you go to:
> https://translations.launchpad.net/onboard/0.97/+translations-settings
>
> Then you can choose a branch where Launchpad will automatically commit new translations daily.
>
> You've got two options:
>
> 1. Choose the same branch you're using for development: in which case you don't have to worry about anything, as you'll always have the latest translations in your branch.
>
> 2. Alternatively, choose a separate branch for translations: in which case, you'll simply have to manually merge the translations regularly back to the development branch, and especially before a release.

I enabled synchronisation for trunk to a separate branch long ago; but I was not aware until now, that with the setup of Onboard also the downstream translations get commited to the separate branch since they are shared with upstream.

>> Or more generally, what is the best procedure to get translations when I
>> have to release a new source tarball? I am not asking about how to
>> download the two available sets; I know the download links on the
>> translation page of the series. I am asking how I should proceed to have
>> a good translation set to include into the source tarball.
>>
>
> I believe the above should answer this question too. Let us know if you need some more help.

Yes, it does. And it is much more simpler than expected. With the setup in Onboard, the translations available downstream are the same as the translations available upstream. :-)

>> Many thanks in advance for any help.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Francesco
>>
>> PS: The old feisty series is still linked to trunk and there is no
>> button to unlink it next to the sentence with that information on
>> launchpad. The other series however do have a button to unlink them from
>> the corresponding upstream series. Could you please tell me what I can
>> do to unlink it?
>> https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/feisty/+source/onboard/+sharing-details
>
> It's probably because Feisty is no longer active, but that's just a guess. I've got permissions on the Ubuntu project, so I've just linked it to an obsolete series (onboard 0.91) - I can't seem to remove the branch link altogether. If you want me to link it to a another particular branch, just let me know.

The obsolete branch you chose is fine for me; but there is something that is puzzling me:

The page opened by the last link above this line now says:
- upstream series is trunk
- upstream branch is lp:~onboard/onboard/0.91

Why is it possible to set two contradictory pieces of information in this two settings? Why does it not automatically set the upstream branch to lp:onboard (which is the branch of the trunk series), when the user chooses trunk as the upstream series?

Cheers,

Francesco