path: root/doc/plugins/contrib/po.mdwn

I've been working on a plugin called "po", that adds support for multi-lingual wikis,
translated with gettext, using [po4a](http://po4a.alioth.debian.org/).

More information:

* It can be found in my "po" branch:
  `git clone git://gaffer.ptitcanardnoir.org/ikiwiki.git`
* It is self-contained, *i.e.* it does not modify ikiwiki core at all.
* It is documented (including TODO and plans for next work steps) in
  `doc/plugins/po.mdwn`, which can be found in the same branch.
* No public demo site is available so far, I'm working on this.

My plan is to get this plugin clean enough to be included in ikiwiki.

The current version is a proof-of-concept, mature enough for me to dare submitting it here,
but I'm prepared to hear various helpful remarks, and to rewrite parts of it as needed.

Any thoughts on this?

> Well, I think it's pretty stunning what you've done here. Seems very
> complete and well thought out. I have not read the code in great detail
> yet.
> 
> Just using po files is an approach I've never seen tried with a wiki. I
> suspect it will work better for some wikis than others. For wikis that
> just want translations that match the master language as closely as
> possible and don't wander off and diverge, it seems perfect. (But what happens
> if someone edits the Discussion page of a translated page?)
> 
> Please keep me posted, when you get closer to having all issues solved
> and ready for merging I can do a review and hopefully help with the
> security items you listed. --[[Joey]]

>> Thanks a lot for your quick review, it's reassuring to hear such nice words
>> from you. I did not want to design and write a full translation system, when
>> tools such as gettext/po4a already have all the needed functionality, for cases
>> where the master/slave languages paradigm fits.
>> Integrating these tools into ikiwiki plugin system was a pleasure.
>>
>> I'll tell you when I'm ready for merging, but in the meantime,
>> I'd like you to review the changes I did to the core (3 added hooks).
>> Can you please do this? If not, I'll go on and hope I'm not going to far in
>> the wrong direction.
>>
>>> Sure.. I'm not completly happy with any of the hooks since they're very
>>> special purpose, and also since `run_hooks` is not the best interface
>>> for a hook that modifies a variable, where only the last hook run will
>>> actually do anything. It might be better to just wrap
>>> `targetpage`, `bestlink`, and `beautify_urlpath`. But, I noticed
>>> the other day that such wrappers around exported functions are only visible by
>>> plugins loaded after the plugin that defines them.
>>> 
>>> Update: Take a look at the new "Function overriding" section of
>>> [[plugins/write]]. I think you can just inject wrappers about a few ikiwiki
>>> functions, rather than adding hooks. The `inject` function is pretty
>>> insane^Wlow level, but seems to work great. --[[Joey]]
>>>
>>>> Thanks a lot, it seems to be a nice interface for what I was trying to achieve.
>>>> I may be forced to wait two long weeks before I have a chance to confirm
>>>> this. Stay tuned. --[[intrigeri]]
>>>>
>>>>> I've updated the plugin to use `inject`. It is now fully self-contained,
>>>>> and does not modify the core anymore. --[[intrigeri]]
>>
>> The Discussion pages issue is something I am not sure about yet. But I will
>> probably decide that "slave" pages, being only translations, don't deserve
>> a discussion page: the discussion should happen in the language in which the
>> pages are written for real, which is the "master" one. --[[intrigeri]]
>> 
>> I think that's a good decision, you don't want to translate discussion,
>> and if the discussion page turns out multilingual, well, se la vi. ;-)
>> 
>> Relatedly, what happens if a translated page has a broken link, and you
>> click on it to edit it? Seems you'd first have to create a master page
>> and could only then translate it, right? I wonder if this will be clear
>> though to the user.
>>
>>> Right: a broken link points to the URL that allows to create
>>> a page that can either be a new master page or a non-translatable
>>> page, depending on `po_translatable_pages` value. The best
>>> solution I can thing of is to use [[plugins/edittemplate]] to
>>> insert something like "Warning: this is a master page, that must
>>> be written in $MASTER_LANGUAGE" into newly created master pages,
>>> and maybe another warning message on newly created
>>> non-translatable pages. It seems quite doable to me, but in order
>>> to avoid breaking existing functionality, it implies to hack a bit
>>> [[plugins/edittemplate]] so that multiple templates can be
>>> inserted at page creation time. [[--intrigeri]]
>>>
>>>> I implemented such a warning using the formbuilder_setup hook.
>>>> --[[intrigeri]]
>>
>> And also, is there any way to start a translation of a page into a new
>> lanauge using the web interface?
>>
>>> When a new language is added to `po_slave_languages`, a rebuild is
>>> triggered, and all missing PO files are created and checked into
>>> VCS. An unpriviledged wiki user can not add a new language to
>>> `po_slave_languages`, though. One could think of adding the needed
>>> interface to translate a page into a yet-unsupported slave
>>> language, and this would automagically add this new language to
>>> `po_slave_languages`. It would probably be useful in some
>>> usecases, but I'm not comfortable with letting unpriviledged wiki
>>> users change the wiki configuration as a side effect of their
>>> actions; if this were to be implemented, special care would be
>>> needed. [[--intrigeri]]
>>>
>>>> Actually I meant into any of the currently supported languages.
>>>> I guess that if the template modification is made, it will list those
>>>> languages on the page, and if a translation to a language is missing,
>>>> the link will allow creating it?
>>>>
>>>>> Any translation page always exist for every supported slave
>>>>> language, even if no string at all have been translated yet.
>>>>> This implies the po plugin is especially friendly to people who
>>>>> prefer reading in their native language if available, but don't
>>>>> mind reading in English else.
>>>>>
>>>>> While I'm at it, there is a remaining issue that needs to be
>>>>> sorted out: how painful it could be for non-English speakers
>>>>> (assuming the master language is English) to be perfectly able
>>>>> to navigate between translation pages supposed to be written in
>>>>> their own language, when their translation level is most
>>>>> often low.
>>>>>
>>>>> (It is currently easy to display this status on the translation
>>>>> page itself, but then it's too late, and how frustrating to load
>>>>> a page just to realize it's actually not translated enough for
>>>>> you. The "other languages" loop also allows displaying this
>>>>> information, but it is generally not the primary
>>>>> navigation tool.)
>>>>>
>>>>> IMHO, this is actually a social problem (i.e. it's no use adding
>>>>> a language to the supported slave ones if you don't have the
>>>>> manpower to actually do the translations), that can't be fully
>>>>> solved by technical solutions, but I can think of some hacks
>>>>> that would limit the negative impact: a given translation's
>>>>> status (currently = percent translated) could be displayed next
>>>>> to the link that leads to it; a color code could as well be used
>>>>> ("just" a matter of adding a CSS id or class to the links,
>>>>> depending on this variable). As there is already work to be done
>>>>> to have the links text generation more customizable through
>>>>> plugins, I could do both at the same time if we consider this
>>>>> matter to be important enough. --[[intrigeri]]
>>>>>
>>>>>> The translation status in links is now implemented in my
>>>>>> `po`branch. It requires my `meta` branch changes to
>>>>>> work, though. I consider the latter to be mature enough to
>>>>>> be merged. --[[intrigeri]]

>> FWIW, I'm tracking your po branch in ikiwiki master git in the po
>> branch. One thing I'd like to try in there is setting up a translated
>> basewiki, which seems like it should be pretty easy to do, and would be
>> a great demo! --[[Joey]]
>>
>>> I've merged your changes into my own branch, and made great
>>> progress on the various todo items. Please note my repository
>>> location has changed a few days ago, my user page was updated
>>> accordingly, but I forgot to update this page at the same time.
>>> Hoping it's not too complicated to relocated an existing remote...
>>> (never done that, I'm a Git beginner as well as a Perl
>>> newbie) --[[intrigeri]]
>>>>
>>>> Just a matter of editing .git/config, thanks for the heads up.
>>>>>
>>>>> Joey, please have a look at my branch, your help would be really
>>>>> welcome for the security research, as I'm almost done with what
>>>>> I am able to do myself in this area. --[[intrigeri]]
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I came up with a patch for the WrapI18N issue --[[Joey]]

I've set this plugin development aside for a while. I will be back and
finish it at some point in the first quarter of 2009. --[[intrigeri]]