French translation for Vanilla 1.0

Ghotcom

Okay jakob_r I have begun testing of the Vanilla interface in french on a new Vanilla 1.0 instance. Errors are arising yet with parse error on strings as french language contains many \' . How can i replace them automatically ? Is it possible at all ?

Minisweeper

contains many whats? ' ? Just escaping them with a \ should work fine shouldnt it? Unless you need a \ in which case you can escape it with a \ first i think?

If it still doesnt work just find the html equivalent

As for replacing automatically, that should be a function of your text editor. Notepad and wordpad do it so i assume whatever you're using should.

Ghotcom

Yes, i was mentioning the ' , I managed to escape them by using the replace function of Bluefish. Thanks. At first i couldn't see how to spot the ' in the string as they could be hardly anywhere between words, so I decided to replace the ' ' wraping the string by " ". That way it was easy.

jakob_r

ah, I see you got it.

Minisweeper

Easy but technically slower because now php will evaluate the entire string. What you should do now is swap all " for something completely wierd (like ^ perhaps?), then swap all ' for \' then swap all ^ for '. If you get me.

Ghotcom

I am missing something, what do yo mean by "evaluate the entire string", why would this be slower to execute in PHP ? Anyway I will trust you :) and make the required changes. I am finished with the language files, except for definitions.hist, can I copy/paste in the contents of definitions.php, as both files look like clones ? Is there something else i should double-check before sending you the package ? Well, I have let definitions.hist unchanged as I don't see the use for french, end users. Today I have been readjusting my phrases and I've begun translation of a few basic extensions like Styles, however I don't know where to put these definitions so that they are recognized ?

Minisweeper

Well if you use something like:
$cool = 'awesome';
$whatever = "this is $cool"; // $whatever now equals 'this is awesome'
$whatever = 'this is $cool'; // $whatever now equals 'this is $cool'

So whenever php comes across " 's it puts more work into evaluating them which slows the parse down. Only a tiny bit mind. And probably pretty unnoticable. But enough that on someones suggestion a few months ago mark went through the *entire* codebase replacing all his " with ' to speed things up a little bit

I'm not sure what definitions.hist is so i'm afraid i cant help you there. I suspect maybe you're on the nail so users can compare the translation to the 'historic' english version but I dont really see the point to it so unless there's a method in marks madness there's probably a much more important use for it. I'm sure someone will tell you anyway.

As for translating extensions, i forget now where the translated strings are kept. I think some extension authors have put their definitions at the top of the extension file. We could do with an official protocol for this if there isnt one already.

Bergamot

You can resolve variables in the middle of strings?

Ghotcom

Bergamot: Yes, it is all right now. I just had to mask [' and '] before actually proceeding with interspersed ' in the middle of strings. minisweeper: I know it should pop in my mind, i see that there is some point with this, but by now I can't realize because I assume the variable must be evaluated at some stage, so it remains 'foggy'(as we say in french :). Do you mean the definition is evaluated too early while parsing ? I will finish translating main extensions and place their definitions in the archive to be uploaded to Lussumo. Wait, one more thing, can I let my files encoded in UTF-8 ? and is it best-practice to replace é è ô by their html code ?

jakob_r

Ghotcom, take a look at this thread about encoding in UTF-8.

Minisweeper

Eh Bergie? I think what i said is correct? Otherwise I've waaay missed the gun sometime.

Ghotcom the variable doesnt have to be evaluated at some stage, if you put it in ' 's it will assume it's not a variable just a string. i.e. the price $25.

I really hope i'm talking sense or i'm gonna look like a right idiot when someone with half a brain comes along.

Ghotcom

minisweeper: Okay i think i am missing someting..maybe a brain or I am not practical at all _.._ Let's give another try :) , $whatever = 'this is $cool' if it is not evaluated how will $cool be replaced by its string to give the complete phrase !?! For the extensions language definitions, when I place them in conf/language.php or french.php nothing happens in the interface, I think it lakes (or I missed :) the method to call them, ain't it ? Anyway as everything else is working I will now archive the language folder and upload it.

jakob_r

I think what min is trying to say is that writing the $-sign in the 'text string itself' will show up as that sign. If you want to include a variable mid-string it should be 'this is my string with '.$myvar.' included in the middle.' That said, I don't think $variables actually occur in the middle of the text itself in the definitions.php. Where mark wanted a value to be inserted he used //1, //2 and //3.

* * *

To get the strings for the extensions to show, you have to comment out the english definitions in the extension itself (put // or # in front of the line), or else they are used.

I found in some cases where the string from the extension needs a variable to be processed (for example the link in GuestWelcome), it wouldn't work with the extension string in the language/definitions.php file.

BTW: to avoid any misunderstandings, the file should be called definitions.php (french.php was the old way) and be put in the French folder, i.e. French/definitions.php. Also in that folder: readme.txt and the email texts. I don't have the .hist file in there at all.

Ghotcom

Voila !! French language has been released. Enjoy !