Re: [gnome-cy] DIOLCH! -- News, updates, figures, and screenshot URLs

[Kevin Donnelly <kevin dotmon com>]

Hi Telsa

This was a very encouraging tour d'horizon!  I think we're actually picking up 
a bit of steam now - I certainly think 25% is a pretty respectable point to 
be at.

On Dydd Llun 21 Gorfennaf 2003 2:18 yp, Telsa Gwynne wrote:
> Thank you! Thanks, all. Writing this up, I realised how much people
> had done. Read on..
>
> On Thu, Jul 10, 2003 at 09:14:29PM +0100 or thereabouts, Kevin Donnelly
> wrote: ^^^^^^^^^^^ (ahem, sorry about the delay)

Well, you were busy.... Weren't you?

> Since someone is working their way through Epiphany, we have a
> present for you. A more-than-half-done Evolution :)

Keith Willoughby is the one working his way assiduously through Epiphany, and 
doing a very nice job of it too.  I noticed the half-done Evo this morning on 
developer.gnome.org (this is getting to be an obsession now, I'm afraid - 
sad, isn't it ...), and thought, "oo-er, clever!".

> Alan had earlier written a program akin to what the msgmerge
> program does: it fills in gaps with strings it's sure about.
> This took Evolution down from 6000 strings to about 4800. Then
> I started going through looking for the easy bits.

I'd be really grateful for a copy of this program, because I'd started looking 
at using msgmerge with a catalog to try to fill in strings.  But going 
through all the files clearing the fuzzy markers was not appealing.  Yes, I'm 
lazy enough to pick anyone's brains if they don't mind.

> It turns out that about 40% of that file is a list of timezones
> and airports which need almost no translation. Dafydd took over
> armed with a "fill msgstr with msgid" vim macro.

Cunning ...  I have to confess to a similar trick with kstars, which has 
almost 4,000 strings, but on looking at it around 3,000 of them were city 
names, region names, constellation names, star names.  Some will need to be 
translated (eg Northern Samoa), but most won't, so I just dumped the msgids 
into the msgstrs.  I told you - lazy as sheugh-water, as we used to say at 
home (sheugh=ditch).  Still, it got KDE up to 25%.

> This was just an experiment, but since we now have this result,
> perhaps this is the one to send to Kyfieithu:
> $ pwd; msgfmt -cv cy.po
> /home/hobbit/cvs/evolution/po
> 4053 translated messages, 2336 untranslated messages.

Terrific - as Dafydd said, getting this running would be a feather in the 
project's hat.

> It is full of stuff about managing your appointments, so it
> does count as a PIM, I think!

Absolutely!

> If you want this, do you want -just- the untranslated parts?
> I think the whole file will be easier from a merging-back-in
> point of view. And you'd get the translations into Omnivore.

Yes, we'll go for the whole file.  As long as most of it is done already, my 
earlier point about seeing no progress doesn't apply.  To be sure I've got 
the right one, would you mind sending it to me?

> I'm thinking this because we have found that with the rate of
> change on HEAD, there are always a few little strings that have
> changed between the files going to Kyfieithu and the files
> coming back. One big file with a couple of fuzzies to fix is
> far easier than half a dozen smaller ones.

Yes, good point.

> * People are finding both Kyfieithu and #gnome-cy on freenode IRC
> network, and joining in. We now have... oh, four or five people
> there instead of two or three.

That's a 100% increase!

> * In fact, we have reports of successful installation of the .mo and
> .po tarballs Dafydd (Harries) keeps on: Debian, SuSE, and FreeBSD.
> There is even some suggestion that Debian sid seems to be including
> some of the translations already. (Daf's stuff is at
> http://muse.19inch.net/~daf/gnome-cy/ and he is working on the
> ar-linux site too.)

Yes - I've already told him I LOVE his logo.  If this was printed up on badges 
and sent around the Ysgolion Meithrin with a little storybook or something it 
would really help to get the word out - all three of my kids think it's cute.  
Hmm - the Ysgolion Meithrin idea is not as loony as it sounds - I'll think 
about that.

> * Canolfan Bedwar needs more publicity. "There is a Welsh Opera?"
> "There will be a Welsh OpenOffice?" People just don't know about
> this.

I think in March or April the idea of doing a monthly press-release was 
raised.  I still think that's a good idea - pick something important and say 
something about it and a few other things.  The drip-drip effect will pay off 
about 18 months down the road.

> * Of all of Gnome (this includes _everything_, and has two window
> managers, two browsers, multiple media players and I don't even
> dare count IM clients), we are at a remarkable 25%. Evolution shot
> that right up. (This one is scary: 57,000 strings, but there is
> a great deal of overlap.)
> http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gtp/status/gnome-2.4/full-info.html
> These are the stuff included about and a selection of other apps
> distros pick and choose from.

25% is actually quite a nice way-station - it proves we've going well, and 
that there is a reasonable chance of finishing, but it still leaves room for 
people to contribute.

> * Screenshots: some at
> http://www.linux.org.uk/~telsa/Cymraeg/sgrinluniau.html
> and there are a couple more floating around.

On the Nautilus (first) one, what's the little a-accent thing at the top of 
the screen?

> * I am getting a lot of "wow, we've been watching and you're
> doing great" feedback from people involved with Gnome. Well.
> "A lot." Three or four, at least. People are noticing. Unfortunately,
> the ones noticing are not people who can use and test this. Yet :)

Doesn't matter - it feeds into the bush telegraph.

> * We have more "problem words" or multiple possible translations.
> Daf can explain.

One that is beginning to really bug me is "nodau tudalen" for "bookmarks" - 
the fact that it's two words makes the menu bar look odd; you think there are 
two menus, Nodau and Tudalen.  Is there any way of getting a single word for 
this?  Or is this just a stupid interpretation? 

> This may sound like a lot, but you should see the list which are
> finished. Note also that six of those are a matter of checking
> about 20 lines and adding three. In total.

Well, I think once you get to a certain point you begin to get momentum - 
nowadays it's called the "tipping-point", but we used to talk about "breaking 
the back of something".  You're certainly beginnin gto see the light at the 
end of the tunnel.

> Again, thanks to everyone involved. This is wonderful wonderful
> stuff. Kyfieithu proved an absolute boon: if Owain Green,
> Gruffudd Williams, Gareth Williams, Tom Llewelyn, Dafydd Jones
> or "Daniel" or any of the anonymous helpers are reading this,
> see what you did!

If everybody brings a stone to the cairn, it grows quite fast.  And we have to 
remember that the word is only beginning to get out about this translation 
effort.

Best wishes

Kevin


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