Blog: Localization

More Localization Servers Coming Online

So now we have this nice localization server that's still in alpha version but is already quite useful to do translations - particularly community translations. Now instead of using the old issue tracker and cvs method which worked but was not very user friendly, we have a web interface that any user can use to post translation suggestions, and then these suggestions can be approved - or rejected - with a single click and added to the exportable po file.

We at Drupal Hispano just couldn't wait to see it installed on drupal.org, so we've set up our own localization server for the Spanish speaking Drupal community. 

It seems that other local communities have had the same idea, including the Norwegian, French, and Dutch communities (thanks to Jo Wouters at Krimson for telling me about the Dutch translation work that's happening).

We've just started and the site is not mature yet, but it is working for a few projects and releases and gives a glimpse as to what is possible. The localization server, using the local package connector, allows full control over which projects and releases are imported. It also allows for translation team management, integration with Organic Groups, and an approval workflow in which some users may post translation suggestions and others may review and approve them.

So the next time I come across a translation I can fix or add, I can now just go to the translation site and post my suggestion. Or if I have a better translation already exported in a file, I can post the file to the site and then it can be imported and stored as a translation suggestion for later review.

Improving UI Translations Means Greater Usability

Lately we’ve been spending a lot of time on improving the usability of our tools by designing more straightforward user interfaces, building more intuitive workflows, and making sure we’re displaying all the right messages in the right places. But this only gets you so far. When a tool is in a language the user doesn’t speak, all of these usability improvements won’t make up for this barrier. But with recent user interface translation improvements for Drupal, we can improve usability for thousands of websites.

We are well on the way of having these translation problems fixed for Drupal, thanks largely to our great localization guru Gábor Hojtsy who recently released two impressive Drupal modules -  the Localization Client, which provides on-page localization editing, and the Localization Server, which provides a community localization editor.

Here's a look at one of the new tools - the Localization Server:

I’ve spent some good time this month working with them both and wanted to share with you why they are so exciting. But first, let me explain the problem in a little more detail. To have a truly usable interface in different language, you need a high quality translation. And to get that, you need to provide translators with the right tools and an easy to follow workflow so they can get the translations right and be fired up to do the translations in the first place. That’s especially important in the open source software world where we have thousands of translators willing to help but no way for them to easily do so. In Drupal, to translate text in the user interface you have to 1) edit string, 2) export po file, 3) post to the issue tracker, 4) follow up, and 5) have someone else to check and commit it. This inhibits the quantity and quality of the translations in Drupal.  

The two new modules will go a long way towards fixing this problem. 

Localization Client

Gabor's work on translating strings in the right context has produced the LocalizationClient, which allows for “just in time” translation in the same page that the text will appear. Young did some great UI improvements on this while working closely with Gabor and now Drupal sites have this awesome tool. We posted a screencast in the fall if you want to see how the tool works.

On a site-by-site basis, this is a huge improvement. But what if we had better and full translation packages to start with so you almost never had to translate anything? If we can crowd source the translation process and provide the people, even those with no technical knowledge, with an easy way to contribute translations, then we’ll all start off with a bigger translated base of text. The Localization Server helps make this possible. 

Localization Server

Out of the need to streamline the old translation workflow explained above came Localization Server. This module makes it really easy to translate texts and get their contributions into the deliverable language files. This is a great tool for doing community translations and handling different projects and releases.

The goal for this tool is for it to become the future translation interface on drupal.org and integrate with project releases and organic groups, and hopefully that will mean that we'll have a central translation system for every language soon.

Note: Only the l10n server is intended to be used in drupal.org.

Speaking Up to End Poverty Using a Drupal Website

Today is your day to speak up and do something to help end poverty. The United Nations Millennium Campaign is gathering people around the world today to stand up against poverty and in support of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. The campaign – called Stand up Speak Out – takes place over just 24 hours, and last year 23 million people stood up against poverty, setting the world record for the most people standing up for a cause. The event is more than halfway over now and looks like it is well on its way to beating its own record.

For the last two months we’ve been working with Jason Wojciechowski and his team at the UN Millennium Campaign on the Stand Up Speak Out website. StandAgainstPoverty.org is a Drupal site that Jason built last year on 4.7 and that we helped him redesign and improve for this year's event (it now runs 5.2). We had a blast coming up with ways to make it easier for people to participate in the campaign online and for the UN Millennium Campaign to really show off the huge numbers of people that are standing up against poverty.

For months now organizers around the world have been mobilizing to set up events where people could join together in person to stand up, and for the past month they’ve been registering these events at StandAgainstPoverty.org. Organizers are now returning to the site to log the number of people that participated in local events and upload their photos. So far 2,018 photos have been uploaded to Flickr showing people from around the world – from school children in India to office workers in Portland – standing up against poverty. We had a lot of fun working on the site’s Flickr implementation – users submit the photos on their event page on the Drupal site, and then the images are tagged with the event title and uploaded into the campaign's Flickr account. It makes for a great Flickr feed and should save the UN Millennium Campaign a ton of time.

For the first time this year users who can't attend a physical event can “stand up” online and join in the attempt to break the world record.  This is a great option to offer users, especially considering the increasing number of people the UN Millennium Campaign has been able to engage online in recent months. They're working with Change.org to facilitate online actions for English-speaking users.  They also built a Facebook app. 

Since Change.org doesn't yet have multilingual support and Stand Up Speak Out is collecting information in five languages, they chose to collect information for other languages by using the combined toolsets of Drupal and Democracy in Action, a powerful CRM tool for non-profits. Drupal's robust internationalization support and ease of use for translators (the Stand Up Speak Out campaign helped fund recent UI work on the l10n_client module) made it simple for users to stand up in any language, and Democracy in Action's great API allowed us to pass all the information into that system for easy reporting later on.

With less than 4 hours remaining in the campaign, everything seems to be running very smoothly. We're excited to see what happens with it! A big congrats to Jason and everyone else involved in organizing this for a successful event and a great Drupal site.

If you haven't yet, join in the activity and be part of a world record! Stand up online against poverty now at http://www.standagainstpoverty.org. You can only participate until 5 pm EDT, so please take action soon. We did this morning : )

How Internationalization Will Advance in the Next Release

Many people who’ve heard the buzz about multilingual features making it into Drupal core have asked me if they should go ahead with their multilingual projects on Drupal 5 or push them back to wait for Drupal 6 to be released. Of course there are many factors to consider, but with multilingual websites there’s no doubt that two big factors are workflow and contributed modules.

Jose just pulled together an excellent comparison chart that should help make that decision easier. The chart below compares the multilingual support with Drupal 5 to Drupal 6.