I have previously mentioned some of the reasons why I chose Drupal for dot.kde.org. However, there is one very important reason which I failed to mention, strong support for translation and localization.
With the release of Drupal 6, Drupal gained many features for translation and localization, and with the support of a few modules you can get a multi-lingual site up and running in no time. An excellent example is Nike's Beijing Olympics website which has a dropdown language menu which will immediately change the page to another language. This is just an interface translation, but with Drupal content translation is also possible, which means that we could have multi-lingual stories on the Dot, awesome!
Even better, to decrease the burden of translation the Dot can sport the Localization client module to make content localization much easier.
But why go through all this effort? For one, it means that all the site controls can be localized, making it easier for users to become involved. But even better, everyone can enjoy getting all the KDE news they know and love in their choice language (with a proper translation effort of course). I think that this is also a great way to get translators involved with the KDE project as a whole.
Also, since one of the primary goals of redesigning the Dot is to have better communication, it means that having translatable content is very important so that we can communicate more effectively with each other.
So if you're looking forward to a multi-lingual Dot stay tuned, there is more on the way.
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Comments
Generic open source translation platform: interested?
Hi. I am one of the project leads of translatewiki.net, aka Betawiki. We currently have about 750 translators for 100+ languages. Our aim is to expand the number of products we can offer to our translators. Currently we support MediaWiki, some 150 extensions for MediaWiki, FreeCol, and Mobile Broadband Connection Assistent.
As you are expressing a need for better localisation tools and a need for availability in more languages, please check out our system and contact us if you think working together may be an option. Plugging in additional products should not be too hard. If you are using gettext, it is really easy, if you are using a different format, it would require some PHP programming to write a connector.
Our philosophy is that we are really open: anyone can contribute, and translations improve by more people working on the same set of messages. As we are currently short on developer capacity, we cannot yet offer TM-like functionality, but that is definitely something we have on our wish list.
We can be found in Freenode IRC channel #mediawiki-i18n, also accessible through http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Special:Mibbit.
Cheers! Siebrand
a.k.o
A better example is http://amarok.kde.org :)
Drupal internationalization could use a good hit by the usability fairy (new translators always have to be talked through how to do stuff) and you have to give too many permissions to translate some things. But on the whole it works for us, and I rather like that each node shows the flags in Drupal 6.
The l10n_client is useless, seems to mostly translate built-in Drupal strings that are almost never shown on a site like a.k.o and are all mostly translated anyways. Though I did see something about it in the latest i18n beta that I installed the other day, maybe it will turn into something.
awesome for a.k.o
I haven't noticed that before but it is absolutely awesome. I think this will be a huge improvement over the status quo and I think it will help increase the reach of KDE.
I suppose to some degree localization client is intended to be more for Drupal core than anything else. Nonethless, this will aid KDE websites by making it easier to provided translated versions of Drupal core strings so that editors, users, etc. will be able to use these features in their native languages.
In the future I hope there are more translation related tools for Drupal so that translating content, links, actions, etc. Is much easier.