Auto-approval has trouble with "template-language.po"

[Jeroen T. Vermeulen]

While reviewing translation uploads, I sometimes see filenames of the form "template-language.po" (e.g. "qbzr-de.po") where the correct template has already been selected, but not the language.

Assuming that that is because the auto-approver fails to recognize this naming pattern, it would be a time-saver if it did.

[Jeroen T. Vermeulen (jtv)]

Henning's new approval form takes some of the pain out of this. Things get easier once a file's name is associated with a POFile.

[Henning Eggers (henninge)]

Making the auto-approver recognize this would also be a work-around for bug 354372.

[ASTROdidactico (raul-astrodidactico)]

I tried to upload a file in NightShade, which name's es.po but it looks like with the same problem still:

https://translations.launchpad.net/nightshade/+imports

still waiting!!!

[Rob Spearman (rob-digitaliseducation)]

ASTROdidactico reports that this his problem (not being able to submit an uploaded po translation file to the Nightshade project) persists. Данило Шеган marked this issue as a duplicate and stated that uploading with the es.po filename would work, however that is not the case.

So is this even the same issue?

[Jeroen T. Vermeulen (jtv)]

Rob: that's a separate problem. The problem with your es.po is that its full path is "es.po," whereas for auto-approval it would have to be in the same directory as the template: "po/es.po." On your system the file may well be in that directory, but your browser won't tell us that when you upload—only the ultimate filename, without path.

You can work around this in any of several ways:
 - by having the import happen directly from a bzr branch (preferred), or
 - by uploading to the template instead of the product release series, or
 - by uploading a tarball, since we do get to see the paths in there (painful).

[Rob Spearman (rob-digitaliseducation)]

Just to clarify, the translator wants to submit a po file because it is a lot easier to use poedit than the rosetta interface for a large number of translations. Translator does not have any project permissions, bzr access, etc.

So what option does he have to get his translations into rosetta now that po files no longer work?

Rob

[Jeroen T. Vermeulen (jtv)]

Rob: in what way do PO files no longer work? Did the translator not have permissions to upload to the translation page(s) for the appropriate language?

[ASTROdidactico (raul-astrodidactico)]

Jeroen,
Since last Agoust I am waiting for the tranlation be upload. Before that it worked fine, I did many translations, but I can't remember if I uploaded es.po file or nightshade-es.po or po_nightshade-es.po file.

Always I has been trying to upload files with the same name that the downloaded po file had. For example, if you try now to download the Spanish po file it is called nightshade-es.po

[Jeroen T. Vermeulen (jtv)]

I see! If you upload your PO file from the pages that you also translate on (nightshade in Spanish), it should be imported as normal. That way it gets attached to the right template and language right away, without requiring the approver to figure out a template and language based on its path/filename.

Part of the technical problem is that the browser will only pass the name of the file you upload, not the directory it's in, so it's hard to match it to a specific template. Even if there's only one template in the project, we can't "guess" that a translation file is for that template, because there may still be another template coming. There might be one already uploaded, but it might also be coming next weekend because there was a last-minute problem. Some people don't upload a template at all, or sometimes its name isn't recognized (e.g. because of a wrong filename extension).

If we do start supporting domain-ll.po, that might help us solve this without the full paths. The code that does this is really convoluted though, so the best choice is probably a radical (and risky) rewrite.

[Rob Spearman (rob-digitaliseducation)]

So if I understand, a translator's best (only?) option now is to tar up their po file so that the path is preserved as "po/es.po". Then if that is uploaded it will be accepted by the auto approver.

Is that correct?

[Jeroen T. Vermeulen (jtv)]

It is one option, but it's neither the only nor the best one.

The best option is to pick the "upload a file" link from any of the pages for that particular translation—so for that specific template in that specific language. That makes it clear to Launchpad where the upload belongs, without having to figure it out based on the path.

Tarballs are useful when it comes to larger numbers of templates—which is also where uploading from the right translation pages becomes awkward.