Spanish translation 2023.4.2

[javiavid]

I have downloaded the new version of imatch 2023.4.2 with automatic Spanish translation.
I have found many errors:

- Menus with commands in English and Spanish mixed.
- Strange translations
- The names of the tabs appear in English, when you select them they change to Spanish. Maybe it's because it was previously in English...? Perhaps when changing the language it would be interesting for all the tabs to be updated.

The main problem I see with the translation is that you could manually correct the translations in the menus and tabs, but then they would not match the words with automatic translation in the online help and it is confusing.

Another problem is that if you translate the help with the browser's automatic option, only the texts that are displayed are translated; when you scroll through the page, the translation continues. If you do a search in the web search box or in the browser search box (CTRL+F) with the translated term, you will not find it because it is not yet translated.

I would like to know your ideas to solve this.

I suggest that the help pages for the languages supported in imatch be translated on the server to do the searches correctly.
It would also be interesting to control erroneous translations in the translator so that they coincide in the software and in the help.

[Mario]

Another problem is that if you translate the help with the browser's automatic option, only the texts that are displayed are translated;

This depends on the browser you use and how the company has implemented the translation.
This is nothing a web page can control of influence. Probably you'll have to scroll down to the end of the page so all text is translated by the browser before you can search on the page.

I suggest that the help pages for the languages supported in imatch be translated on the server to do the searches correctly.

Can't do that, sorry. I have no access to multi-language tools for my web site and I cannot create, maintain and publish web sites in languages I don't speak for legal reasons.

Menus with commands in English and Spanish mixed.
(...) The names of the tabs appear in English, when you select them they change to Spanish.

This is probably because the user interface toolkit has stored some texts in the previous when storing the workspace...
Probably this goes away when you close and re-open affected panels and Views.

Strange translations

This is to be expected. Machine translation is never perfect and doing it properly requires a human that checks the translation and corrects problems. Unfortunately, I cannot hire professional translators. I got a 30,000US$ per language quote once.

I'm thankful to Mees and Josè who maintain the Dutch and Portuguese translations for IMatch.
They use the IMatch Translator app included in IMatch to edit translations. The IMatch translator has access to machine translation for the grunt work and a comfortable editor for doing corrections.

[javiavid]

I can help with manual software corrections, but if they don't match the help it will be confusing for new users to try to search for help on the web or even on the support forums because the words will not be accurate.

Another idea is to be able to activate that in the tooltip the original name in English appears between brackets. This way if you need to ask for help in the forum or search the web you can use the exact term.

This could be an option in the preferences or by pressing and holding a key the English term appears.

[Mario]

Another idea is to be able to activate that in the tooltip the original name in English appears between brackets. This way if you need to ask for help in the forum or search the web you can use the exact term.

Maybe. But that would not cover menu entries, texts used in dialog boxes and messages and the rest of the IMatch user interface...

What could be possible is a "lookup" where the user types in text in his language (e.g. a Spanish menu command) and the tool displays the corresponding texts in English.

A similar tool could be used maybe to make translations easier. My basic idea is: A user sees a strange or nonsense text (command, message, dialog, ...) somewhere. He opens the tool, search for the text and then provides a correction / translation that is somehow transferred to me for inclusion.

The proper way to do this (I guess) would be a glossary of English -> Spanish IMatch terms (commands, features) and then use this glossary (somehow) when translating the user interface and the help.

The help is pure (sans formatting) HTML and all IMatch resources are in JSON files.
This makes them machine-translatable. But as you correctly mentioned, this is just a start.
I might be able to machine-translate them once, and again after each change. But then a native speaker / translator would have to look over each page, making changes as needed, ensuring the same wording is used in the help and the user interface.

Unfortunately, I cannot do this. No time and no language skills for Spanish or French.
And it is too much work for one person to start a new translation. Maintaining a translation later (incorporate changes in IMatch etc.) is very much doable and takes a few minutes or maybe an hour after a big update.

And I don't really know how many users would prefer/need an IMatch version in their language.
There are very few requests. Maybe I loose potential customers already when they notice that IMatch is available only in four languages. Or most of the potential users speak one of the four languages and there is no need for more translations.

Doing a quick test with machine translation for Spanish and French is one thing.
Doing it properly  will be a lot more work. And I'm outta time all the time

[javiavid]

Well, for now we are improving the translation of the software and later we will think about what we will do with the help... 
There are people who do not use the software if it is not translated.

I'll start with it next week and I'll let you know if I have any questions.

[Mario]

Cool. See also this post: https://www.photools.com/community/index.php/topic,13739.msg96920.html#msg96920
Maybe you two can cooperate?

[javiavid]

Hello Mario, although I am very busy, in my free time I am translating the software and I have spoken with Tonimr about doing it together. I have some doubts:

- I have seen that the biggest problem with the translations of menus and commands is the & character, I have read the help and I understand what it is used for, but I have also seen in the .json file that sometimes the automatic translator you used translates it good and sometimes bad, it copies it just as it comes in English. Why does this happen?
Example:
Fil&e sometimes appears as &File and other times appears as &Archivo

- When we finish reviewing and correcting the software, what do we do? Shall we send you the .json file? or is it sent to you automatically?

- If we do it between several people, do we put the corrections together in the .json or do you do it?

Thanks

[javiavid]

Another questions,
- Is it possible to do a search using regex?
Using &[A-Z]|&[a-z] would allow you to go faster.

- Many times there are words or phrases to translate that are repeated many times. Is it possible that it applies to all words or phrases that are identical?

[Mario]

that sometimes the automatic translator you used translates it good and sometimes bad, it copies it just as it comes in English. Why does this happen?

I have no idea. I just asked Microsoft translator to translate each resource, one by one. There are not many knobs to filly or anything. And since I don't speak the language, I have no idea if the result is any good or not

The & should go to the "best" menu keyboard shortcut. Which will vary between languages.

Using &[A-Z]|&[a-z] would allow you to go faster.

You don't have to use the IMatch Translator app. If you use a text editor like the free Microsoft Visual Studio Code (which has great support for JSON and plug-ins e.g. for spell checking), you can search using regular expressions. I translate everything in Visual Studio code, I don't use the IMatch Translator for en/de.

Many times there are words or phrases to translate that are repeated many times. Is it possible that it applies to all words or phrases that are identical?

Yes. See:



What I can offer before you two put too much effort into this: I could re-run the machine translation using the DeepL translator (https://www.deepl.com/translator) which may produce better results. I'm willing to reactivate my subscription for a month and do an initial translation for es  which you can then work on.

DeepL is support to be the best on the market. I know that en/de de/en translations are usually very good.
Can you please make some tests (its free) with English strings where you consider the machine translation as bad? Copy & paste the English text into DeepL and check the translation result.
If it is sufficiently better, I will re-run the machine translation of the en resources using DeepL and provide you with the results.

When we finish reviewing and correcting the software, what do we do? Shall we send you the .json file? or is it sent to you automatically?

Send them to me and I'll integrate them into the next version.
I can also merge multiple translations into one file when there are no conflicts. A conflict means that the same resource was translated differently by different translators. If multiple persons translate the same resource, you should divide the work, e.g . each person works on one or multiple resource types only (strings, commands, menus, dialogs and messages). This minimizes the risk of conflicts.

[javiavid]

Thanks for the answers
Deepl is great, but wait until I do some tests with Google, Microsoft and Deepl to see which one translates better or avoids the & character problem.

The translations in general are not bad, I think the main problem is when they have the & character, which often leaves it in English because they do not understand the word. I think Google doesn't usually fail with this, but I'm not sure.

Deepl is great, but wait until I do some tests with Google, Microsoft and Deepl to see which one translates better or avoids the & character problem.