Introducing the MuseScore translation server

• Jan 19, 2010 - 10:19

Over the past year, we have seen many languages being added to the MuseScore project. While this is a great indication that the MuseScore software is being adopted at rapid speed, the main challenge is to make sure that the translations are kept up to date. Up to today, translators have done this using QT Linguist and by posting their translation file files to this forum. But this will change from now on.

From now on, anyone can help translating MuseScore via a translation server at http://translate.musescore.org Having a centralized server means no more hassle with uploading translation files to this forum. Instead, we can all simultaneously translate MuseScore.

So head over to http://translate.musescore.org and be bold by adding a missing translation for your language. When you think you hit a bug, don't hesitate to report it in a comment to this post.

Future improvements

  1. Export & Import of translation files
  2. User Interface improvements such as ajax translation submission

Comments

I've been working on the Hungarian translation for a long time (sorry :-( ), and now I'd like to import it, but I can't find the option on the website, though it's mentioned. Could someone help me?

In reply to by molnarm

Hi molnarm,

Import of ts files is currently still done by uploading them to this forum. I'll make sure they get imported in the translation server. So feel free to post your ts file any time.

In reply to by drikanb

Hi drikanb,

Permissions are added to your musescore.org account to translate the menu and handbook page on http://musescore.org/hu There are still a lot of page not translated. You can find them all in the menu link: Fordító kijelölések

For translating the software, just head over to http://translate.musescore.org, select Hungarian and hit the translate tab to start translating.

Feel free to ask if you have questions or remarks.

In reply to by Thomas

hi thomas,

I followed your advice and tried to translate some of the expressions I found filtered as "all, ..., "untranslated, all, drikanb, blank(?).

It took me a while to find my way around, but I hope I did OK. This dictionary-like translation should not really work in Hungarian, because even explicit musical expressions have different meanings in context. For instance: the expression 'natural' translates differently in the cases of 'C natural' or a natural accidental. (I translated it in the latter meaning in the context of accidentals).

If you need it, I would be interested in translating the MuseScore handbook too. Am I right in thinking that you are one of the masterminds of thge community (I raised the same question to David Bolton and will to Iasconic too)?

I shall check how much was saved of my efforts - and looking forward to reading your comments if any

In reply to by drikanb

The translation server is still in development, although it's already public. The UI will improve a lot in the coming months. So that should take away usability issues.

Regarding the context, that's indeed always an issue with translating software. If you think the English source should be better, than the software can always be adapted of course. Other than that, I guess it's a little trial and error.

Translating the MuseScore handbook is certainly something which can benefit a lot to Hungarian users. Also, Google will index the text and most likely send new Hungarian users to the website. Finally, new users bring new potential translators.

My answer would be similar to the one from David: I'm involved since a couple of years, maintain the website, try to give support to translators and try to promote MuseScore in all possible ways. If you are looking for the other people who are quite involved, check the developer mailing list.

In reply to by Thomas

Hi thomas,

as I did not want to seem dumb, I have been trying, for quite a long time, to find '....the menu link: Fordító kijelölések' you referred to. On the given URL I tried clicking all and every menu items, tried to overwrite the English - with no luck. Occasionally on links in red I was informed that I had no access right ....

Help!

In reply to by drikanb

Hi drikanb,

My mistake. I forgot to activate another checkbox. You should be able to find it now.

Regarding the red link: this simply means the page it is referring to does not exist yet. What is supposed to be done: find the English source page in the handbook, click on it and on that page click on the translation tab. Now add the Hungarian translation while using the title you found in the Hungarian handbook which was 'red'. In case you wish to use another title, that's fine, but then change it in the Hungarian handbook. Either way, once you submitted the translated page, you will see that the Hungarian handbook will nicely refer to the translated page.

Don't hesitate to come back if you have more questions.

It's well be great - to work on the translation sometime and check/use it next day in nightly build..!
Its possible?

In reply to by dubyk_

Hi dubyk,

Thanks for dropping your request. I am still thinking what the ideal setup should be:
- frequency of string updates (svn update)
- frequency of translation commits (svn commit)

For the string updates, I will currently trigger it manually. Therefore, the frequency can be between 1 day and 1 month.
For translation commits, there could be a daily commit so the nightly build picks up the latest translation. I will set this up somewhere next week and inform when it's done in another comment.

I am trying to add some German translations but I am having real difficulties to map the context information (like EditStyleBase or Element) to the place the strings are used in the program.

Obviously I am missing something here. Is there a way to map the context information from the translation server to the GUI without looking into the source code?

Another question: the program starts in English by default on my computer (English Ubuntu version). Which environment variable(s) would I need to set to start it in German language?

Thanks for bearing with my beginner's questions...

In reply to by pianopleasure

I'm afraid I don't have any better idea other than looking into the source code to to find out about the context of strings. Inline translating from within MuseScore which then sends the translation to the translation server would be the solution. Perhaps Qt has something on board to implement this wild idea.

I can't help much with the Ubuntu question. Cross post your question on Launchpad perhaps.

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