[FM Discuss] localisation plugin and rss pdfcasts update

[adam hyde]

hey ho,

All is well here in Zagreb...plenty of ideas from the conf...the
following is an update about what Aco and I have been upto these last
days...(also posted on the blog -http://en.flossmanuals.net/news)

I am off to Slovenia soon to present FM there, ten back to Zagreb to
work more with Aco in the below...

adam


Localization Plugin Beta
Aleksandar Erkalovic has been working on the translation and
localization plugins and we have our first plugin in beta (testing)
form. The first plugin enables the translation of interface texts. these
interface elements are stored in TWiki using special variables. These
variables can be extracted and stored in '.po' files which contain the
original language and the translated version of each item. The entire
interface can then change language 'on the fly' by swapping translated
'.po' files.

The first localisation plugin enables the fast creation and editing
(translation) of these files as well as the editing of CSS (Cascading
Style Sheets) and images. Its a very simple, fast, and effective plugin
which we hope will not be just of use to us, but to other TWiki projects
that have localisation needs.

The second plugin will be for managing the translation of content. This
plugin may be split into 2 plugins, the first to realise the exchange of
content between the FLOSS Manuals language sites, the second for the
management of the translation workflow. 

While building the first component we have stumbled across some nice
additional features which will allow RSS publishing of PDF manuals.
These so-called 'PDF casts or 'book casts' (can we, or should we call
them 'manual casts'?) mean that readers can subscribe to the publishing
RSS feed and be notified of new manuals and new updates to existing
manuals. A reader can then download the PDF of choice through their RSS
reader.

It is anticipated by many that this is one of the future pathways for
publishing in the digital age. We are very excited to be introducing
this feature soon, and it is especially nice to be able to realise this
functionality as a necessary step towards developing our document
exchange methodology. Its a nice added extra.

The document exchange plugin itself, when complete, will enable the
transfer of material between different language versions of FLOSS
Manuals. The plugin will be released to the TWiki repository and has
uses beyond only our needs but we can see how this makes collaborative
online authoring all the more powerful. Being able to easily exchange
material between 'wikis' and, in the case of FLOSS Manuals, being able
to slot the material into a translation workflow is an exciting idea.

The format for this exchange will be RSS (hence our extra discovery
mentioned above), and the rules set for requesting different types of
RSS will be quite simple and straight forward. This will also enable the
possibility to include our manuals into the translation processes of
systems such as the forthcoming Simple Localisation System (SLS -
http://blog.worldwidelexicon.org/2007/05/25/simple-localization-system-sls/). 


-- 
Adam Hyde
FLOSS Manuals

http://www.flossmanuals.net