WEBVTT
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Hello everybody.
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My name is Jean-Christophe Helary,
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and today I’m going to talk about
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Emacs manuals translation and OmegaT.
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Thank you for joining the session.
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Translation in the free software world
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is really a big thing. You already know
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that most of the Linux distributions,
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most of the software packages,
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most of the websites
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are translated by dozens of communities
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using different processes
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and file formats.
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Translation and localization
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are things we know very well.
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It’s a tad different
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for the Emacs community.
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We do not have a localization process
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because it’s quite complex
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and because we don’t
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have the resources yet.
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Still, we could translate the manuals,
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and translating the manuals
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would probably bring a lot of good
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to the Emacs community at large.
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So what’s the state of the manuals?
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As of today, we have 182 files
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coming in .texi and .org format.
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We’ve got more than 2 million words.
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We’ve got more than
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50 million characters.
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So that’s quite a lot of work,
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and obviously, it’s not a one person job.
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When we open .texi files,
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what do we have?
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Well, we actually have a lot of things
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that the translators
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shouldn’t have to translate.
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Here we can see that only
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the very last segment,
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the very last sentence
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should be translated.
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All those meta things
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should not be under
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the translator’s eyes.
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How do we deal with this situation?
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For code files, we have
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the gettext utility that converts
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all the translatable strings
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into a translatable format,
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which is the .po format.
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And that .po format is ubiquitous,
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even in the non-free
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software translation industry.
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For documentation,
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we have something different.
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It’s called po4a,
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which is short for ‘po for all’.
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When we use po4a
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on those 182 .texi and .org files,
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what do we get?
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We get something that’s much better.
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Now we have three segments.
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It’s not perfect because,
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as you can see,
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the two first segments
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should not be translated.
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So there’s still
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room for improvement.
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Now, when we put that file set
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into OmegaT, we considerably reduce
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the words total.
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We now have 50% fewer words
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and 23% fewer characters to type,
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but that’s still a lot of work.
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So let’s talk about OmegaT now
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and see where it can help.
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OmegaT is a GPL3+ Java8+
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Computer Aided Translation tool.
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We call them CATs.
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CATs are to translators
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what IDEs are to programmers.
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They leverage the power of computers
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to automate our work,
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which is, reference searches,
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fuzzy matching, automatic insertions,
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and things like that.
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OmegaT is not really recent.
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It will turn 20 next year,
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and at this point,
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we have about 1.5 million downloads
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from the SourceForge site,
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which doesn’t mean much
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because that includes
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files used for localization
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and manuals, but still
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it’s a pretty big number.
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OmegaT is included in
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a lot of Linux distributions,
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but as you can see here,
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it’s mostly downloaded on Windows systems
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because translators
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mostly work on Windows.
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OmegaT comes with a cool logo
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and a cool site too,
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and I really invite you to visit it.
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It’s omegat.org, and you’ll see
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all the information you need,
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plus downloads to Linux versions,
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with or without Java included.
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So what does OmegaT bring to the game?
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Professional translators have to deliver
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fast, consistent,
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and quality translations,
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and we need to have proper tools
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to achieve that.
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I wish po-mode was part of the toolbox,
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but that’s not the case,
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and it’s a pity.
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So we have to use those CAT tools.
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Let me show you what OmegaT looks like
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when I open this project that I created
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for this demonstration.
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The display is quite a mouthful,
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but you can actually modify
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all windows as needed.
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I just want to show you
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everything at once
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to give you a quick idea of the thing.
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You have various colors, windows,
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and all those spaces
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have different functions
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that help the translator,
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and that you’re probably
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not familiar with.
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I’m going to introduce you
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to the interface now.
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So first, we have the editor.
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The editor comes in two parts:
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the current segment,
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which is associated to a number,
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and all the other segments,
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above or below.
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At the top of the window,
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you can see the first three segments
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that were in the .po file.
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The last one here, the fourth one, comes
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with an automatic fuzzy match insertion.
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Such legacy translations are what we
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call ‘translation memories’.
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OmegaT has inserted this one automatically
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because I told it to do so,
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and for my security, it comes with
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the predefined fuzzy prefix
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that I will have to remove
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to validate the translation.
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Our next feature is the glossary feature.
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In this project,
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we have a lot of glossary data.
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Some is relevant and some is not.
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In the segment that I’m translating
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at the moment, you can see
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underlined items.
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This pop-up menu on the right
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allows me to enter the terms as I type.
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It’s kind of an auto insertion system
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that also supports history predictions,
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predefined strings, and things like that.
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In the part on the right,
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we have reference information
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that comes directly from
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the .po and .texi files.
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We also have notes that I can share
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with fellow translators,
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and we have numbers that tell me
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that I still have 143 000 segments more to go
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before I complete this translation.
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As we see, there are plenty of strings
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that we really don’t want to have to type.
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For example, those strings
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are typical .texi strings
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that the translator
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should really not have to type.
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So we’re going to have to
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do something about that.
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we’re going to have to create
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protected strings
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with regular expressions,
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so that the strings can be visualized
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right away in the source segment,
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entered semi-automatically
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in the target segment,
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and checked for integrity.
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The regular expression I came up with
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for defining most of the strings
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is this one,
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and I’m not a regular expression pro
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so I’m sure some of you will correct me.
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But this expression gives me
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a good enough definition
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even though it does not yet include
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Org mode syntax.
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So now we have all those
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.texi specific things
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that we don’t want to touch
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displayed in gray.
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Actually, you may have noticed
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that I cheated a bit,
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because here I added the years
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and the Free Software Foundation name
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to the previous regular expression
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to show you that you can protect
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any kind of string, really.
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So what we have now
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is a way to visualize the strings
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that we do not want to touch,
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but we still have to enter all of them
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in the translation.
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For that, we have the pop-up menu
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that I used earlier with the glossary,
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and we also have items
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in the edit menu
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that come with shortcuts
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for easy insertion of missing tags.
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Last, but certainly not least,
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we can now validate our input.
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Here, OmegaT properly tells me
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that I missed 7 protected strings,
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I entered only 1998,
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but there were five different years,
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the copyright string,
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and the FSF name string.
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With all this almost native
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Texinfo support,
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we have much less things to type,
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and there is a much lower
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potential for errors.
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But we agree, it’s still a lot of work.
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What we’d like now
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is to work with fellow translators,
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and here we need to know
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that OmegaT is actually
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a hidden svn/git client,
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and team projects can be hosted
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on svn/git platforms.
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Translators don’t need to
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know anything about VCS.
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They just need access credentials,
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and OmegaT commits for them.
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This way we do not have to use
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ugly and clumsy web-based
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translation interfaces,
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and we can use a powerful
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offline professional tool.
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So this is how it looks
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when you look at the platform
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where I hosted this project.
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The last updates are from
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20 days and 30 seconds ago
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when I created this slide,
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and you can see that I had a partner
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who worked with me on the same file set.
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Although it looks like
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we actually committed the translation
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to the platform,
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it was not us, but OmegaT.
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OmegaT does all the heavy-duty work.
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It regularly saves to
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and syncs from the servers.
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Translators are regularly kept updated
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with work from fellow translators,
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and when necessary,
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OmegaT offers a simple
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conflict-resolution dialogue.
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Translators never have to do anything
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with svn or git ever.
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And now we can envision a future
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not so far away
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where the manuals will be translated
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and eventually included
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in the distribution,
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but that’s a topic
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for a different presentation.
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So we’ve reached the end of this session.
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Thank you very much again for joining it.
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There are plenty of topics
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I promised I would not address,
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and I think I kept my promise.
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There will be a Q&A now,
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and I also started
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a thread about this talk
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on Reddit last Saturday.
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You can find me on the emacs-help
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and emacs-devel lists as well,
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so don’t hesitate to send me
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questions and remarks.
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Thank you again, and see you around.
