Workflow for preparing a new plugin translation for a new Moodle Major release?

Workflow for preparing a new plugin translation for a new Moodle Major release?

by Alexander Bias -
Number of replies: 9

 

Hi,

we have a plugin in the Moodle plugin repository which is available for Moodle 2.3. The plugin is translated with AMOS into German.

Now, we have published the plugin for Moodle 2.4 in the Moodle plugin repository. When uploading the new plugin version, the Moodle plugin repository does some check for the plugin's language strings and I suspect that the repository is talking to AMOS behind the scenes.

Unfortunatelly, the language strings for our plugin for Moodle 2.4 are still empty in AMOS, even after waiting several hours (as I don't know if there is some cronjob involved).

Now, I'd like to know what's the workflow for preparing a new plugin translation for a new Moodle Major release? Shouldn't unchanged strings from the previous release be automatically copied to the new Moodle release language pack? If not, how do I do that without copy&paste each  language string in AMOS individually?

Thanks in advance
Alex

In reply to Alexander Bias

Re: Workflow for preparing a new plugin translation for a new Moodle Major release?

by David Mudrák -
Picture of Language pack maintainers
Hmm, that sounds like a bug. What plugin is it?
In reply to David Mudrák

Re: Workflow for preparing a new plugin translation for a new Moodle Major release?

by Alexander Bias -

David,

I experienced this with 3 plugins:
block_people
block_login_userinfo
block_course_overview_campus

Alex

In reply to Alexander Bias

Re: Workflow for preparing a new plugin translation for a new Moodle Major release?

by German Valero -
Picture of Language pack maintainers

Hi Alexander,

 All three blocks seem to be available for translation for 2.4 and older branches. I already translated the first two into mexican spanish.

In reply to German Valero

Re: Workflow for preparing a new plugin translation for a new Moodle Major release?

by Alexander Bias -

Hi German,

thank you for your comment (and for the translation).

I can confirm that the blocks are available for translation of 2.4. My problem is that I already did the translation of the blocks into German for 2.3 and I wanted to know if there is a better way to create the translation for 2.4 than copying and pasting each string individually in AMOS.

From my understanding, unchanged strings from the previous plugin release should be automatically copied to the new plugin release language strings. But that wasn't the case when I published the blocks for 2.4, the language strings for the plugin for 2.4 are empty.

Regards,
Alex

In reply to Alexander Bias

Re: Workflow for preparing a new plugin translation for a new Moodle Major release?

by David Mudrák -
Picture of Language pack maintainers

Aha. So the situation seems to be like this:

  1. There was a version for 2.3 registered in AMOS
  2. It was translated into German
  3. Then a new version for 2.4 was published

At this stage, there are new English strings registered for the 2.4 branch but they have no translation. The translation is not automatically copied from lower branches. At the moment, the way how to do it without manually copying all the strings is to use the Merge tool at the Stage page. With it, all existing translation at 2.3 that is not present in 2.4 can be copied.

We will probably need to address it in the future and merge the translation automatically from lower branches when a new version of a plugin is registered.

In reply to David Mudrák

Re: Workflow for preparing a new plugin translation for a new Moodle Major release?

by Alexander Bias -

Hi David,

Aha. So the situation seems to be like this:

  1. There was a version for 2.3 registered in AMOS
  2. It was translated into German
  3. Then a new version for 2.4 was published

Indeed.

At this stage, there are new English strings registered for the 2.4 branch but they have no translation. The translation is not automatically copied from lower branches. At the moment, the way how to do it without manually copying all the strings is to use the Merge tool at the Stage page. With it, all existing translation at 2.3 that is not present in 2.4 can be copied.

I'm sorry, but on the stage page (http://lang.moodle.org/local/amos/stage.php), there is no merge tool. There is only "Import translated strings from file" and "Compare strings between two branches". With the latter, I am only able as far as I understand to compare strings of Moodle core, not plugins.

I'm just a AMOS contributor, no language pack maintainer. Do I need special rights to see the merge tool? Or do I have to choose something beforehand on the translator page to see the merge tool?

On http://docs.moodle.org/24/en/AMOS, there is a little indication on this topic: "The suggested work flow is to continue your translation work for the new Moodle version and merge your work in the older versions. You can do that using the Amos - Stage page: Set the source version to the version you were working in and set the target version to the version you want the strings to be copied to." But I still don't understand it. Could you please provide a step-by-step explanation and / or a screenshot how to do this merging?

We will probably need to address it in the future and merge the translation automatically from lower branches when a new version of a plugin is registered.

Yes, this would be great. But I think it would suffice to have a better more detailed explanation on http://docs.moodle.org/24/en/AMOS.

Thanks, Alex

In reply to Alexander Bias

Re: Workflow for preparing a new plugin translation for a new Moodle Major release?

by David Mudrák -
Picture of Language pack maintainers
Hi Alex.

Right. The merge tool is available for the lang pack maintainers only. Meantime, there is not much you can do about this, unfortunately sad Please, can you report a bug in the tracker (MDLSITE, component lang.moodle.org). I will implement the automerger once we have the code freeze for 2.5.

Thanks for spotting this!