[Libreplanet-dev] LP translations: a proposal...

[al3xu5 / dotcommon]

Hi all

Yesterday I discovered some translations of the LP wiki pages. 
See for example the 'Main_Page' at:
http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Main_Page
and its Spanish and Italian translations:
http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Principal
http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Pagina_principale

When I was revisioning the Italian translation of the 'Main_Page', I
have looked for a better way (than "manually" adding language links to
a page) to automatically link all the translations of a page. 

I was not able to find any template for translations inside LP (at
http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Special:Templates) so I tried to develop
new ones, learning how from similar templates at mediawiki.org...

Firstly, I did some tries with subpages... but LP seems do not
use subpages... After, I tried using ParserFunctions, but #titleparts
was not working as needed...

Finally, I figured out a possible solution. 
It consists of using the 'Language' template I created at:
http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Template:Languages

This template should be included, either in the "original" page and in
all its translations (but included ONLY IF almost one translation of the
original page really exist in the wiki) and then shows the available
translations of that page (obviously, it only works for the "original"
page and its translations which include this template itself).

The 'Language' template should be called in the following format:

{{Languages|master page=MasterPage|language=Code}}

where:
- 'MasterPage' is the "original" page
- 'Code' is the locale of language of the page in which the template
  has being included (either if the "original" or a translation page) 

So, if the "original" page 'MyPage' is written in English (as more often
is) and it has a Italian translation at the page 'MyPage.it", then:
- in 'MyPage', should be included this:
{{Languages|master page=MyPage|language=en}}
- in 'MyPage.it', should be included this:
{{Languages|master page=MyPage|language=it}}

To see how it really works, you can look at (original page, in Italian):
http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:LibrePlanet_Italia/miniguida-freenode
and at (English translation):
http://libreplanet.org/wiki/LibrePlanetItalia/miniguida-freenode.en

As you can see, the 'In other languages' link points to a non existing
page:
http://libreplanet.org/wiki?title=Translation_Policy&action=edit&redlink=1
This should be the page where to state the LP policy for translations
and where ask/suggest people to use the 'Languages' template...

More, the "languages link" are displayed using the lang codes: I did
not have found a way to display the native language names... maybe I
am missing something related to the LP wiki configuration/extensions...
I have also looked at:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Language_policy#Language_codes
http://svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/trunk/phase3/languages/Names.php
Maybe some LP developer here could help me about this...

Moreover, please note that the 'Languages' template does not require
any special rule about page naming (neither for the "original" master
page nor for their translations). Neverthless, I think it would be
better to fix a page naming rule within the LP policy for translations.
It might be something like:
- "original" master page: MyPage (or My_Page)
- translations: MyPage.xx (being 'xx' the lang code, i.e. MyPage.it for
  Italian, MyPage.fr for French)

If you, LP developers, think that the 'Languages' template is good
and could be useful to manage translations in the LP wiki:
- I propose to use/adopt it within LP!
- (with your help) I will try to improve it
- I can help building/writing a LP policy for translations


Please, let me know about it (and excuse me for my bad English)
Best regards

-- 
al3xu5 / dotcommon
Support free software! Join FSF: http://www.fsf.org/jf?referrer=7535
______________________________________________________________________
Public GPG/PGP key block
ID:           1024D/11C70137
Fingerprint:  60F1 B550 3A95 7901 F410  D484 82E7 5377 11C7 0137
Key download: http://bitfreedom.noblogs.org/gallery/5721/dotcommon.asc
[ Please, do not send my key to any keyserver! ]

signature.asc
Description: PGP signature