Missing translation strings in 1.8-dev

[grofaty]

1. I have downloaded latest 1.8-dev version for Ubuntu 20.04 from https://github.com/PintaProject
/Pinta/suites/4133342889/artifacts/105856675

2. I started Pinta in my local language and checked Help | About and then Version Info tab. I see "Copy Version info" in English despite my local language selected. This is expected, because this string is still not translated in my local language.

3. I jumped to Launchpad.net and translated all of the Pinta strings into my language.

4. In Launchpad I have requested to download latest translation pinta.mo file that I have finished translation.

5. I copied the pinta.mo file to Pinta's locale/<my_launguage>/LC_MESSAGES directory and override existing pinta.mo file.

6. Started Pinta in my local language and checked the "step 2" and now I see "Copy Version info" in my local language, so translation got correctly picked up in step 5.

NOW TO THE ACTUAL TRANSLATION PROBLEMS:
a) "Tool Box" from View menu is English only.
b) Do some changes on image and File | Close and still English message: "Save changes to image <file_name> before closing?" I checked Launchpad and there is very similar translation string: "Save the changes to image "{0}" before closing?" So in Launchpad is extra "the" world.
c) Rectangle Select and from Tools drop down box at Selection Mode and still in English "Union (+) (Ctrl + Left Click)" and "Xor (Ctrl + Right Click)" and "Intersect (Alt + Left Click)".

[Cameron White (cameronwhite91)]

I think these are all expected - the Launchpad translations are still for the 'master' branch, not the 'gtk3-v2' branch, so the strings aren't quite the same. The close dialog's strings changed in the GTK3 branch from bug 1909576, to be more consistent with other GTK applications.

I'm thinking of doing a final minor release from the master branch (GTK2) so that those bug fixes & improvements are available, before switching over to the GTK3 branch (at which point the launchpad translations should also switch to that branch)

[grofaty (grofaty)]

Thank you for explaining that Pinta's Launchpad Translations are for master branch.
I am marking this bug as Invalid, because of false alarm.

[grofaty (grofaty)]

I am reviving this bug report from "Invalid" to "New", because not it has gotten adequate.

Latest 1.8-dev from master https://github.com/PintaProject/Pinta/suites/4454522719/artifacts/118266006

Non-English Pinta language with all of the strings translated on Launchpad.net and still too options from View menu "Status Bar" and "Tool Box" in English.

Probably now when Pinta 1.8-dev has become master branch it should also become trunk translation in Launchpad.net.

[Cameron White (cameronwhite91)]

Yes, we should start switching over the translations. This should have happened automatically, but due to https://bugs.launchpad.net/bzr-git/+bug/1313861 the launchpad translations can't be automatically updated from changes in our git repository.

I've also been meaning to look into whether we should switch to https://weblate.org/en/ for translations. This was suggested to me by someone on the Launchpad Translators mailing list when I requested translation help for v1.7.1, and it seems to have much better support for pulling and pushing changes to the git repo

[grofaty (grofaty)]

Just my two cents. Try to think if automatic switch of translations to trunk is really so severe, that you are considering moving whole translation system to another platform.

In my humble opinion, more fragmentation appears, more users you lose. You see source code is on Github, but reports are on Launchpad and Translations is planned to be on another system. Probably if people would like to talk about Pinta they need to go some other place. This fragmentation of systems makes obstacles to people and they may not bother to register all kind of different accounts just to participate in Pinta project.

My advice, if I may dare, is try to think:
a) if this translation problem is problem related to you as single person of source code maintainer having problem only once every few years then master/trunk branch is changed or is this problem that 70 language translators will have (probably there are more translators, because there can be more translators per language) changing platform
b) is Translation system on Launchpad so bad and some other translation system so good, that is worth potentially losing translators. Ubuntu is huge community and I assume many translators are translating many projects and when you put obstacle user must register and get comfortable with another translation system, he or she may chose to translate some other project.

[Cameron White (cameronwhite91)]

The problem is fairly frequent - new translatable strings aren't pulled in automatically from changes to the source code on GitHub, so there's a manual process of updating the Launchpad translations so that translators can start translating those new strings.

But I agree that changing to a new system has downsides, and we do make use of the launchpad translators mailing list to request help with translations before a release.

[Cameron White (cameronwhite91)]

OK, I think the Launchpad translation pages is properly set up now. There is now both a trunk and gtk2 translation series, so the gtk2 translation can be updated if we ever need another 1.7.x bug fix release, but the latest translation strings from the master branch are now in there.