Shoutbox

Hi there,

For the past days i've been thinking about a way of helping the translators community by creating something even more useful than Choli's Messenger Plus! Translator ( which is an excellent app and has been helping me a lot, by the way! ). I quickly started coding and testing a multi-user text editor, which the one and only feature was that multiple users could edit the same file at the same time. I used Java for this little app, but i'm thinking about using ASP.net in the "real deal". I know that collaborative editors aren't something new, but that experience was essential, as it was the start point for the idea i have now.
As the thread subject suggests, i'm willing to create an Online translator, which main ideas ( for now ) would be:

• Multi-user supported, which would allow the team to have always the most recent version.
  
• Possibility to define what does each member has to translate. For instance, you could associate a specific color to each translator and his translating part would have his background color.
  
  
• The translation file would be stored in the server, and when you were ready to send the file to Patchou, the web app would zip the file for you and even send it to Patch if you want
  
• This web app would have a spell checker valid for ( most ) languages. Also, with the right dictionary files, it could be done so much more! A search for synonyms, a translator "on-the-fly" if you don't know a specific word or expression. Yes, these features would be more complicated to implement, but that could be done in the future versions.
  
• Integration of real screenshots of Messenger Plus! Live, so translators could see in real-time if what they translated fits or needs to be reduced. I'm not very sure about the best way to do this though, so I'm open to suggestions. I guess taking a screenshot of every single form could be done, but at each new version there would be a lot to change.
  
• Cross-compatible ( duh! )
  
• Code highlighting, in order to distinguish between keys, sections, values and comments.

And right now these are the ones I remember. Of course I'll only start this project if the translators and beta testers themselves think this would be something they would use. As a translator myself, I know how confusing is to have our ini file and the default one open in Textmate/Notepad++, and Messenger Plus! preferences, regedit and the almighty dictionary always open too. And of course, once again, i'm open to suggestions and criticism

That's one of the best ideas I've heard since a long time! I think this will make the task of the translators a lot easier and more fun!
Now find a good name... "Online Messenger Plus! Translator" is a bit long, can you abbreviate it? If you find 2 words to put in front of it which start with a P and an R, you can have "PROMPT".

* Matti approves! (although his vote is worth nothing as he's not a translator whatsoever...)

quote:

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Originally posted by Mattike

Now find a good name... "Online Messenger Plus! Translator" is a bit long, can you abbreviate it? If you find 2 words to put in front of it which start with a P and an R, you can have "PROMPT".

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The name is maybe the least important thing This is an app exclusive for the Plus! community, so I guess whatever the community decides, it's fine with me.

The Translation section of the forum doesn't get that much viewers, let's see if everyone reads this thread...

Great ideia. It would be really nice.

And I have a suggestion: set a status for each phrase/sector, such as "not translated", "translated" (these are obvious), but also "needs review", "needs improvement", "finished", etc.

I really would like to know the opinion of more translators.

I really like the idea, though I'm wondering how you will achieve file synchronization between peers. In particular for testing purposes, as I know that when translating, I always keep an eye on MPL's windows to see if my text fits etc.

Maybe you should make a poll about this, to get more response.

It's not a bad idea, there are other products online that partly do this, but not something as this.

I'd most certainly use it.

But please, release it under the GPLv3 if you decide to do it.
That way others can improve it and fix errors that might occur.
One never knows when you're suddenly a lot more busy with other things than you'd like to be.

Hi there,

Just to let you all know that i'm working on this Unfortunately I had some health problems with a very close family member, and didn't have that much time to work on it.

quote:

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Originally posted by Apatik
I really like the idea, though I'm wondering how you will achieve file synchronization between peers.

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I've been working on some prototypes for this project, and that's one of the major issues about this approach. BUT, fortunately, i've managed to get that working. It will need a dedicated server to handle all the client requests, but everything will work as it should. It will be more secure and capable than trying a p2p approach. The thing is, however, because of this different approach, the first versions of this application will be standard applications in Java or C#. Later I plan to port this to a web-based platform, but as I am a lot more familiarized with these languages, I will be able to "think" this app better, as I know what they are capable of.

Nevertheless, this won't be largely used until the next big version of Messenger Plus! so I guess I have some time.

It's not a bad idea, but there are other features for a new translator application higher on my wish list.

Being able to translate collaboratively isn't something I really miss. We already sort of have a tool for this; Messenger. It lets us discuss translations to the extent we need.
Zipping the finished file and sending it to Patchou is even less of an issue.

The single biggest issue when translating is trying to figure out just exactly where the text appears in Plus!, and how much space is available on the current line. Therefore, I would like a tool like Choli's that also displayed the actual Plus! window next to the text translation fields, so you could always tell on-the-fly how much space was left.

I realize that this probably ain't doable by anyone except Patchou himself, and I'm sure he has better things to do.