Discussion: Use crowdin for translation.

[koppor]

In comparison to transifex, we have the automatic GitHub integration.

Pros and cons of crowdin

• +: Easy translation interface. Users can start joining at https://crwd.in/jabref.
• +: Nice status overview - see https://crowdin.com/project/jabref - internal link: https://crowdin.com/project/jabref/settings#translations - fixes fixes https://github.com/JabRef/help.jabref.org/issues/171
• + Translators do not require a login at GitHub and do not need to work with pull requests etc.
• + Translations can still be made using our GitHub workflow
• Exclamation marks are escaped. However, this is no issue, because we unescape them:

  jabref/src/main/java/org/jabref/logic/l10n/LocalizationKey.java

  Line 25 in d45d7ca

  return this.key.replace("_", " ").replace("\\#", "#").replace("\\!", "!").replace("\\=", "=").replace("\\:",

• - At least one review of the translated string is required
• - We cannot create our translation status page anymore (using syncLang.py) as crowdin either (i) does not put a key at all or (ii) puts the English translation in the properties file. Checking for equality does not help as OK is translated to OK.
• - It seems that generating the pull request has to be triggered manually.

I would vote to go for crowdin to make it easy for interested people to work on the translation.

TODOs

• Check why our language file checker fails and adapt it accordingly
• id vs in. Result: The ISO-Code for Indonesia changed from "in" to "id". Java uses only the old one. See https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/Locale.html#Locale(java.lang.String), but Crowdin uses the new one. With a new mapping configuration on Crowdin, this is fixed.

[Siedlerchr]

One reason for the failure are the missing underscores in the translation of german, e.g Prüfe Integrität

[koppor]

We should get rid off the underscores anyway... Seem, they are an old relict! Am 29.11.2017 20:40 schrieb "Christoph" <notifications@github.com>:

…

One reason for the failure are the missing underscores in the translation of german, e.g Prüfe Integrität — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#3470 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABTaftSXfC8RbfpQ2JT9PtmAmNvCOulAks5s7bMqgaJpZM4Qu5ty> .

[tobiasdiez]

I'm fine with the change and the translation ui of crowdin looks nice. But in the end, the @JabRef/translators have to work with it. What is your opinion about this proposed change?

[ThomasA]

To my great shame, I have not updated the Danish translation for years (but hope I might get time for it again). To the extent that I still have any say in this, I vote for Crowdin. I was never that happy about popeye anyway. I remember experiencing problems with the Danish letters æ, ø, å (I haven't checked, but I hope Crowdin is better at that).
Two things I have not understood yet:

• Does Crowdin still use/generate the .properties files?
• Is it OK to just use spaces in strings instead of dealing with the horrible underscores?

[mlep]

My comments:

• Nice and convenient interface
• While translators will not require a login at GitHub, they seem to require one at Crowdin. What about anonymous contributions through Crowdin? Possible?
• I hope that review can be skipped (or at least that translations do not need to be reviewed one-by-one).
• Since the current Github workflow will continue to work, we can try out Crowdin and see if it helps to get better localizations of JabRef.

[koppor]

• .properties: Yes, no change. Therefore, the GitHub workflow still works.
• Yes, I will work on removing these underscores - I hate them 😇
• Translators also need a login at GitHub. Otherwise, the pul requests don't work.
• I did not see a way to skip the reviews, but this is a one-click thing. We can do it always before/after each devcall or when an email comes in. Think, this is not a show stopper

[koppor]

I close this PR, but we can continue discussing here. I will have to create some more PRs to get this thing running...