path: root/doc/plugins/po.mdwn

[[!template id=plugin name=po core=0 author="[[intrigeri]]"]]
[[!tag type/format]]

This plugin adds support for multi-lingual wikis, translated with
gettext, using [po4a](http://po4a.alioth.debian.org/).

It depends on the Perl `Locale::Po4a::Po` library (`apt-get install po4a`).
As detailed bellow in the security section, `po4a` is subject to
denial-of-service attacks before version 0.35.

[[!toc levels=2]]

Introduction
============

A language is chosen as the "master" one, and any other supported
language is a "slave" one.

A page written in the "master" language is a "master" page. It can be
of any page type supported by ikiwiki, except `po`. It does not have to be
named a special way: migration to this plugin does not imply any page
renaming work.

Example: `bla/page.mdwn` is a "master" Markdown page written in
English; if `usedirs` is enabled, it is rendered as
`bla/page/index.en.html`, else as `bla/page.en.html`.

Any translation of a "master" page into a "slave" language is called
a "slave" page; it is written in the gettext PO format. `po` is now
a page type supported by ikiwiki.

Example: `bla/page.fr.po` is the PO "message catalog" used to
translate `bla/page.mdwn` into French; if `usedirs` is enabled, it is
rendered as `bla/page/index.fr.html`, else as `bla/page.fr.html`

(In)Compatibility
=================

This plugin does not support the `indexpages` mode. If you don't know
what it is, you probably don't care.


Configuration
=============

Supported languages
-------------------

`po_master_language` is used to set the "master" language in
`ikiwiki.setup`, such as:

        po_master_language => { 'code' => 'en', 'name' => 'English' }

`po_slave_languages` is used to set the list of supported "slave"
languages, such as:

        po_slave_languages => [ 'fr|Français',
                                'es|Español',
                                'de|Deutsch',
        ]

Decide which pages are translatable
-----------------------------------

The `po_translatable_pages` setting configures what pages are
translatable. It is a [[ikiwiki/PageSpec]], so you have lots of
control over what kind of pages are translatable.

The `.po` files are not considered as being translatable, so you don't need to
worry about excluding them explicitly from this [[ikiwiki/PageSpec]].

Internal links
--------------

### Links targets

The `po_link_to` option in `ikiwiki.setup` is used to decide how
internal links should be generated, depending on web server features
and site-specific preferences.

#### Default linking behavior

If `po_link_to` is unset, or set to `default`, ikiwiki's default
linking behavior is preserved: `\[[destpage]]` links to the master
language's page.

#### Link to current language

If `po_link_to` is set to `current`, `\[[destpage]]` links to the
`destpage`'s version written in the current page's language, if
available, *i.e.*:

* `foo/destpage/index.LL.html` if `usedirs` is enabled
* `foo/destpage.LL.html` if `usedirs` is disabled

#### Link to negotiated language

If `po_link_to` is set to `negotiated`, `\[[page]]` links to the
negotiated preferred language, *i.e.* `foo/page/`.

(In)compatibility notes:

* if `usedirs` is disabled, it does not make sense to set `po_link_to`
  to `negotiated`; this option combination is neither implemented
  nor allowed.
* if the web server does not support Content Negotiation, setting
  `po_link_to` to `negotiated` will produce a unusable website.

Server support
==============

Apache
------

Using Apache `mod_negotiation` makes it really easy to have Apache
serve any page in the client's preferred language, if available.

Add 'Options MultiViews' to the wiki directory's configuration in Apache.

When `usedirs` is enabled, one has to set `DirectoryIndex index` for
the wiki context.

Setting `DefaultLanguage LL` (replace `LL` with your default MIME
language code) for the wiki context can help to ensure
`bla/page/index.en.html` is served as `Content-Language: LL`.

For details, see [Apache's documentation](http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/content-negotiation.html).

lighttpd
--------

Recent versions of lighttpd should be able to use
`$HTTP["language"]` to configure the translated pages to be served.

See [Lighttpd Issue](http://redmine.lighttpd.net/issues/show/1119)

TODO: Example

Usage
=====

Templates
---------

When `po_link_to` is not set to `negotiated`, one should replace some
occurrences of `BASEURL` with `HOMEPAGEURL` to get correct links to
the wiki homepage.

The `ISTRANSLATION` and `ISTRANSLATABLE` variables can be used to
display things only on translatable or translation pages.

### Display page's versions in other languages

The `OTHERLANGUAGES` loop provides ways to display other languages'
versions of the same page, and the translations' status.

An example of its use can be found in the default
`templates/page.tmpl`. In case you want to customize it, the following
variables are available inside the loop (for every page in):

* `URL` - url to the page
* `CODE` - two-letters language code
* `LANGUAGE` - language name (as defined in `po_slave_languages`)
* `MASTER` - is true (1) if, and only if the page is a "master" page
* `PERCENT` - for "slave" pages, is set to the translation completeness, in percents

### Display the current translation status

The `PERCENTTRANSLATED` variable is set to the translation
completeness, expressed in percent, on "slave" pages. It is used by
the default `templates/page.tmpl`.

Additional PageSpec tests
-------------------------

This plugin enhances the regular [[ikiwiki/PageSpec]] syntax with some
additional tests that are documented [[here|ikiwiki/pagespec/po]].

Automatic PO file update
------------------------

Committing changes to a "master" page:

1. updates the POT file and the PO files for the "slave" languages;
   the updated PO files are then put under version control;
2. triggers a refresh of the corresponding HTML slave pages.

Also, when the plugin has just been enabled, or when a page has just
been declared as being translatable, the needed POT and PO files are
created, and the PO files are checked into version control.

Discussion pages and other sub-pages
------------------------------------

Discussion should happen in the language in which the pages are
written for real, *i.e.* the "master" one. If discussion pages are
enabled, "slave" pages therefore link to the "master" page's
discussion page.

Likewise, "slave" pages are not supposed to have sub-pages;
[[WikiLinks|ikiwiki/wikilink]] that appear on a "slave" page therefore link to
the master page's sub-pages.

Translating
-----------

One can edit the PO files using ikiwiki's CGI (a message-by-message
interface could also be implemented at some point).

If [[tips/untrusted_git_push]] is setup, one can edit the PO files in one's
preferred `$EDITOR`, without needing to be online.

Markup languages support
------------------------

[[Markdown|mdwn]] and [[html]] are well supported. Some other markup
languages supported by ikiwiki mostly work, but some pieces of syntax
are not rendered correctly on the slave pages:

* [[reStructuredText|rst]]: anonymous hyperlinks and internal
  cross-references
* [[wikitext]]: conversion of newlines to paragraphs
* [[creole]]: verbatim text is wrapped, tables are broken
* LaTeX: not supported yet; the dedicated po4a module
  could be used to support it, but it would need a security audit
* other markup languages have not been tested.

Security
========

[[po/discussion]] contains a detailed security analysis of this plugin
and its dependencies.

When using po4a older than 0.35, it is recommended to uninstall
`Text::WrapI18N` (Debian package `libtext-wrapi18n-perl`), in order to
avoid a potential denial of service.

BUGS
====

[[!inline pages="bugs/po:* and !bugs/done and !link(bugs/done) and !bugs/*/*"
feeds=no actions=no archive=yes show=0]]

TODO
====

[[!inline pages="todo/po:* and !todo/done and !link(todo/done) and !todo/*/*"
feeds=no actions=no archive=yes show=0]]

broken links to translatable basewiki pages that lack po files
--------------------------------------------------------------

If a page is not translated yet, the "translated" version of it
displays wikilinks to other, existing (but not yet translated?)
pages as edit links, as if those pages do not exist. 

That's really confusing, especially as clicking such a link
brings up an edit form to create a new, english page.

This is with po_link_to=current or negotiated. With default, it doesn't
happen.. 

Also, this may only happen if the page being linked to is coming from an
underlay, and the underlays lack translation to a given language.
--[[Joey]] 

> Any simple testcase to reproduce it, please? I've never seen this
> happen yet. --[[intrigeri]]

>> Sure, go here <http://l10n.ikiwiki.info/smiley/smileys/index.sv.html>
>> (Currently 0% translateed) and see the 'WikiLink' link at the bottom,
>> which goes to <http://l10n.ikiwiki.info/ikiwiki.cgi?page=ikiwiki/wikilink&from=smiley/smileys&do=create>
>> Compare with eg, the 100% translated Dansk version, where
>> the WikiLink link links to the English WikiLink page. --[[Joey]] 

>>> Seems not related to the page/string translation status: the 0%
>>> translated Spanish version has the correct link, just like the
>>> Dansk version => I'm changing the bug title accordingly.
>>>
>>> I tested forcing the sv html page to be rebuilt by translating a
>>> string in it, it did not fix the bug. I did the same for the
>>> Spanish page, it did not introduce the bug. So this is really
>>> weird.
>>>
>>> The smiley underlay seems to be the only place where the wrong
>>> thing happens: the basewiki underlay has similar examples
>>> that do not exhibit this bug. An underlay linking to another might
>>> be necessary to reproduce it. Going to dig deeper. --[[intrigeri]]

>>>> After a few hours lost in the Perl debugger, I think I have found
>>>> the root cause of the problem: in l10n wiki's configured
>>>> `underlaydir`, the basewiki is present in every slave language
>>>> that is enabled for this wiki *but* Swedish. With such a
>>>> configuration, the `ikiwiki/wikilink` page indeed does not exist
>>>> in Swedish language: no `ikiwiki/wikilink.sv.po` can be found
>>>> where ikiwiki is looking. Have a look to
>>>> <http://l10n.ikiwiki.info/ikiwiki/>, the basewiki is not
>>>> available in Swedish language on this wiki. So this is not a po
>>>> bug, but a configuration or directories layout issue. This is
>>>> solved by adding the Swedish basewiki to the underlay dir, which
>>>> is I guess not a possibility in the l10n wiki context. I guess
>>>> this could be solved by adding `SRCDIR/basewiki` as an underlay
>>>> to your l10n wiki configuration, possibly using the
>>>> `add_underlays` configuration directive. --[[intrigeri]]

>>>>> There is no complete Swedish underlay translation yet, so it is not
>>>>> shipped in ikiwiki. I don't think it's a misconfiguration to use
>>>>> a language that doesn't have translated underlays. --[[Joey]] 

>>>>>> Ok. The problem is triggered when using a language that doesn't
>>>>>> have translated underlays, *and* defining
>>>>>> `po_translatable_pages` in a way that renders the base wiki
>>>>>> pages translatable in po's view of things, which in turns makes
>>>>>> the po plugin act as if the translation pages did exist,
>>>>>> although they do not in this case. I still need to have a deep
>>>>>> look at the underlays-related code you added to `po.pm` a while
>>>>>> ago. Stay tuned. --[[intrigeri]]