[FM Discuss] translation of manuals and software interface localization

[Tomi Toivio]

Hi,

This is a bit of a meta-FM question, since it goes beyond the scope of FM
itself, but this is still quite important when we talk about translating
manuals, since the localization project should be finished before we can
translate a manual properly.

What do other people translating FM manuals do with missing, bad or
incomplete interface localizations? The manual just doesn't look too good
if some or all of the program interface is in English.

I tend to run into localization issues all the time when
translating/writing manuals, but it seems like too much extra work to go
and download some .po file, translate it and try to submit it. However, if
the localization is done on a wiki-like platform such as Launchpad or
Translatewiki, it becomes quite easy to localize some strings as required
by the manual translation project.

In the case of OpenStreetMap I just went to Translatewiki and
http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Special:Contributions/Tomi_Toivio but still
it is not possible to translate all of the software interfaces shown in the
manual there, it only has Potlatch 2 and the OSM website, but no JOSM or
mobile editors, dunno where those are localized.

Just a little poll, what do people working with non-English manuals think:

1) Localization isn't a part of writing manuals in FM, it should be ignored
2) Go and translate at least the strings that are visible in the manuals

-- 
Best Regards
Tomi Toivio
Open Source Coordinator
http://fi.flossmanuals.net/
tomi at flossmanuals.net
+358453536625
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