Edit interface translation project starting for MySource Mini
17 DecThroughout MySource Mini development, we've always said that we would start a translation project for the editing interface as soon as we had the interface design complete as this would allow us to understand the true complexity of the translations. We've reached that point now and the first commits to start supporting editing interface translations have now gone in.
The gallery below shows a few screenshots of the interface translated (badly) into Korean. Most translations are simply done with Google Translate to get things started, but our lone Korean developer did help contribute where he could.
The first step in this project is to ensure all our interface messages and labels are written in a way that allows them to be translated. Like a lot of open source projects, we are using gettext for our translations, so the process of converting our strings in PHP code is pretty easy. We'll be looking into a gettext implementation for JavaScript shortly to make sure that side of the interface is supported. We also have a few images that contain text, so we will be re-building those to ensure the text is either printed using PHP or JavaScript.
The next step will be an interface where the default locale can be selected for a system and another interface where each user can choose their own preferred locale. The locales need to be supported on the server as well, so we'll also have to sort out instructions for that process.
And finally, we need translators. I know the guys in the Squiz Poland office are keen to translate the interface into Polish for us, and most of our developers know a second language to get things started. If you'd like to help, get in touch.
We expect this project to be on-going and take a while to complete, but we hope to have all the main parts of the interface available for translators early in the new year.