During translation we often see typos and not well understandable english lang elements. Is there a defined process to add contributions for the default english strings? Tracker isn't an alternative!
If typos are spotted in contributed plugins, I have found that writing to the plugin maintainer is often a quick way to get those typos corrected. A regular E-mail or a Moodle message is often faster/better than writing in the comments tab of the plugin page .
I also feel that Moodle Tracker is not a real alternative, as it is not friendly for us, mere translators.
If a typo is seen in Moodle core, as in DEV [cacheapplicationhelp,core_admin] "Cached items are shared amoung all users and expire by a determined ttl."
where "amoung" should be "among" ( I think), then I think it is David Mudrak who is best prepared to correct this (as I hope he will).
Another example:
DEV [cachesessionhelp,core_admin] "User specific cache that expires when the users session ends. Designed to aleviate session bloat/strain."
where "aleviate" should be "alleviate" (I think).
But I am not a native english speaker .
At least I found wrong terminology in LTI/external tool: "instructor" instead of "teacher" and yesterday I saw "teams" in new strings for assign module where "groups" are correct.
Developers are often not the best guys to explain what they have developed. So often it will be better if others correct or optimize the interface terminology.
Have you tried to contact those developers (in optional plugins pages)?
My few experiences (3 plugins so far) is that they do like to improve their creation, mostly if the re-write is minor, quick and better-looking, and somebody else has done an improved version of the string for them, they just need to commit the changes.
Suggestions? Alternatives?
Please read prior post on same subject at http://lang.moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=2384
Perhaps this subject might be better moved to AMOS NEWS at http://lang.moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=1 and maybe David Mudrak might consider sending an Email to all translators and language pack maintainers, so that we all contribute to finding typos in the original English strings and having them corrected ASAP for everybody's benefit...
Another typo in 2.4dev strings:
DEV [storename_help,cache] "This sets the store name. It is used to identify the store within the system and can only consist of a-z A-Z 0-9 -_ and spaces. It also must be unique. If you attempt to use a name that has already been used you will recieve an error."
"recieve" should be "receive" (I think).
I hope David Mudrak will see that these typos are corrected soon.
German,
I don't think it should be Davids job to correct typos.
Ralf
Ralf,
What would you suggest ? We all want to have those typos corrected, mostly those in Moodle core.
German,
my very first idea is to do it in the same way as we do for other languages. Each user in AMOS can make suggestions and an 'en' maintainer confirms them.
The problem will be that lang file process for en file are different to other languages and place for storing ist different. But I think David should give us feedback. he knwos the processes best. Think David is on the way to hackfest in West Australia.
Ralf
ralf
Thanks guys for opening this. Yes, this is a known issue and there is even a feature request for it waiting in the tracker - see MDLSITE-1363. I am happy to read that you concluded the same solution as we did - that is to use AMOS for it.
The idea described in the tracker is that there will a new language pack "en_fix" introduced in AMOS. Everybody will be able to submit contributions to it and there there will its maintainers (like Helen and Mary from the docs team) who would be responsible for the review and eventual acceptance of the contribution (as we do with all languages in AMOS).
From time to time (ideally it is automated and thence can be done often), the changes in "en_fix" would be merged into the standard "en" and removed from "en_fix".
I believe it would work well. Any objections?
No objections; I think it makes perfect sense
Looks good also to me. My +1.
My +1 too
Yes please. Go ahead
No objections. Thanks for your help David
OK, so the new language pack en_fix has been created here in AMOS, with Mary Cooch and Helen Foster set as its maintainers (ladies, I expect you two are able to communicate some internal procedures to cooperate on incoming contributions, right?).
Although strings are not copied over to Moodle, please start using it as a tool to collect fixes of typos in the English language pack (and/or general improvements of English texts).
Although strings are not copied over to Moodle, please start using it as a tool to collect fixes of typos in the English language pack (and/or general improvements of English texts).
Although strings are not copied over to Moodle, please start using it as a tool to collect fixes of typos in the English language pack
In the meantime before getting this automated, surely just ping one of the core people to try and get fixes integrated (especially around releases?).
Dan
Thanks David,
I just submitted the suspected typos I nagged about before.
I apologize if I seemed rude. I lack English social skills. I am only a mexican veterinarian.
This en_fix language seems to be a very elegant and efficient solution.
My congratulations
Hi,
I thought the official language for Moodle was British English, but there are many words in Moodle 2.3 core with American spelling, such as "color" (69 cases) instead of "colour" (17 cases).
Some cases are within the string identifier (eg: 2.3 [selectcolor,core_editor] ) and I fear they can/should not be changed.
Are both spellings to be used indistinctly ?
Is it worth the time and effort to hunt down and change the American spelling of these English strings into British spelling ?
Shall we laugh about it and work on really important typos?
If they are in code they should not be changed. They usually are related to words in CSS or HTML, in which case the US spelling is correct.
But for actual strings in the GUI, yes, the en spelling should be Australian English which is 100% the same as UK English.
Hi German.
The "official" language for Moodle is actually the Australian English (hey mate!) and the default locale is set to en_AU.UTF8. That's basically the same as the British English though. So from this point of view, "Select your color" is a typo. However, some strings are copied over from upstream projects (like TinyMCE) which might be using en_US. So for core_editor and editor_tinymce strings, I would suggest to leave them as they are. They would be probably overwritten during the next upstream upgrade anyway.
There are some exceptions, too. Especially when the string eventually refers to an HTML or CSS syntax. Then the US spelling is correct (for example, some strings still use the legacy <font color="#ff0000"> tags or they refer to CSS property "background-color").
We do not fix typos in string identifiers usually. However, feel free to submit a patch for "color" in all other places - like themes (I used the AMOS Translator filter and found couple of them).
Another typo in 2.4dev branch:
DEV [confignavshowallcourses,core_admin]
"If enabled users will see courses they are enrolled in both within the My Courses branch and the course structure. When disabled users with enrolments will only see the My Courses branch of the navigaiton. The number of course shown would still be limited by "Course limit(navcourselimit)" setting when user is either not logged in or not enrolled in any course."
"navigaiton" should be "navigation" (I think)
@David (ladies, I expect you two are able to communicate some internal procedures to cooperate on incoming contributions, right?). Well I should like to think so!
Does anybody know if this en_fix language pack is meant to be used for English Moodle core strings only, or if we can submit corrections for the English strings of contributed plugins?
Good question German
en_fix is for core strings ONLY. For contributed plugin string corrections, please contact the plugin maintainer.
Thanks Helen. I will do so.
But...
a) the contributed plugins are present in the en_fix Components list in AMOS
b) there can be language errors in the English language files of those contrib plugins as well as in the moodle core files
So, why not use it?
Joseph
There are some typos in the English language strings of several contributed plugins; and while most of the maintainers of those plugins have been very nice and quick at fixing the typos, other maintainers seem that they don't check the comments' page for their plugins at the Moodle plugin database, nor do they read their messages within the Moodle messaging system.
Adding an issue in Moodle Tracker is not an easy task for a mere translator (such as me), though it seems to be the proper way to handle this type of improvements in an open source system such as Moodle (I think, but I don't really know).
But, I think there will be increasingly fewer typos to be found in Moodle stable English strings in the coming months, and the en-fix language will be less used in a few months.
I will be looking forward to reading the comments of other translators.
So, why not use it?
Because en_fix is not a solution for typos, it is a tool to fix them. Changes committed into en_fix will be eventually merged into the main English pack which is part of Moodle source code. When that happens, merged changes will be removed from en_fix. We plan to have this automated.
But with contributed plugins, there is no easy way how a change could get from en_fix to the plugin itself. So we believe that contacting the plugin maintainer is the most efficient way to handle typos in contributed plugins.
Note that at the moment, AMOS lets you stage en_fix strings for contrib plugins. That has already been reported as a bug and will be fixed.
Thanks for clearing things up, David.