[WG: I18N & L10N] Help documentation woes

[Neal Caidin]

Hi Steve,

This morning I did some light testing on 2.8.x nightly server , http://nightly2.sakaiproject.org:8081/portal  , 2.9.x nightly server, http://nightly2.sakaiproject.org:8087/portal, and trunk (which is down, so I updated my local copy and ran on localhost).  

The Help files did seem to change for me on all three environments when I switched my preferences (using the GUI, not system default with Java) to a different language. The difficult thing about the Help file translations is that many translations seem incomplete and some seemed to approach the problem differently. It can take some digging just to see if any Help was translated. Russian and Chinese (China) had translations tagged on to the English in the table of contents), at least as far as I can tell, since I cannot read either language, just see the characters. Others, like Portuguese (Brazil) substituted their language in place of the English (what I would have expected). And for others, like Portuguese (Portugal), French (France), have limited or no translation of the Help files. I didn't check every language, I checked French (France), Spanish (Spain), Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Russian (Russia) and Chinese (China). And I didn't click every Help topic, but it seems like I needed to, if I was taking inventory, because of the inconsistencies I saw.

Am I doing something wrong, in not seeing complete translations, or is that just the way it is?

Based on what I am seeing, I would just have the International group and/or the QA group verify that the changes being made to the Help files in trunk don't break anything and go forward with the merge for 2.9.1. 

I have to admit, I am rather confused by the overall process, but hoping I won't have to learn too much because maybe we will find a better way. I think for 2.9.1 there is not enough time to find a way to make a separate/additional help tool. That even sounds challenging for a 2.9.2 release, unless you've got something up your sleeve!

At least this is my opinion in this moment. Could change as I learn or understand more.

Thanks,
Neal

On Dec 10, 2012, at 5:46 PM, Steve Swinsburg <steve.swinsburg at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Neal,
> 
> Translated help files in different languages do indeed work in 2.8. This can be verified by using the nightly 2.8 server, choosing a different language, say Chinese, then clicking Help. Not all tools have translated help files though.
> 
> I would suggest making a separate/additional help tool with the new functionality, so that local investments of the current help (even if not contributed back) can still be carried forward and people can migrate at their leisure.
> 
> cheers,
> Steve
> 
> 
> On 11/12/2012, at 3:50 AM, Neal Caidin <nealcaidin at sakaifoundation.org> wrote:
> 
>> [copying Documentation list]
>> 
>> Hi Internationalization folks!
>> 
>> We are in a bit of a pickle (U.S.A. saying meaning not a good situation) with the Help documentation. We are worried that if we merge in the changes that have been made to Trunk, we will break the Help function for languages other than English. The first question is whether the 2.8.x Help docs which are in the 2.9.x system are working for languages other than English. Are they? Does it respect user preferences or does it only work for the default system language?
>> 
>> For the 2.9.x documentation, it does not look like there are translations available yet for many languages, including Spanish and French.  Portuguese, Chinese and Russian appear to all be done. Some documents have been added/removed in Trunk for the English version  but it might have broken things for the languages which have been translated, in Trunk.
>> 
>> So the request is whether the i8n group can look at the state of Help in 2.8.x and compare to the updates in Trunk and provide an assessment. For 2.9.1 we could selectively merge back the English Help from Trunk into 2.9.x and then plan to fix the Internationalization for 2.9.2 ?
>> 
>> There is some discussion happening on the TCC (Technical Coordination Committee) list about the Help system , and improving that for the future, but we have this situation to deal with for the present, and could use some input and help.
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> 
>> Neal Caidin
>> 
>> Sakai CLE Community Coordinator
>> nealcaidin at sakaifoundation.org
>> Skype: nealkdin
>> AIM: ncaidin at aol.com
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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