[Mailman-Users] translate strings, not whole templates

[Barry Warsaw]

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On Jan 19, 2008, at 1:51 AM, jidanni at jidanni.org wrote:

> What you currently have now is each translator not only responsible
> for translating message strings -- but also faithfully reproducing the
> whole HTML structure of the English version -- intact.
>
> E.g., we run a random template through a HTML validator and see
> end tag for "TABLE" omitted, but its declaration does not permit this
> start tag was here
> end tag for "CENTER" omitted, but its declaration does not permit this
> start tag was here
> end tag for element "CENTER" which is not open
> end tag for element "TD" which is not open
> end tag for element "TR" which is not open
> end tag for element "TABLE" which is not open
>
> Which means it is just lucky if the page displays as you intend it.
>
> Also we see there even is the bin/transcheck command, to measure
> aspects of the seriousness of the problem.
>
> So I would advise before calling for help translating, first relieve
> each translator from the task of keeping the HTML house of cards
> intact. Don't require them also to be a HTML expert. Just use one
> English template, and substitute strings into that.
> Site customization of any page of course would still be possible.

This thread should move to mailman-developers, but here's my take on  
things.  First, we completely agree with you. :)

The plan is to adopt a new templating system for Mailman 2.2 and 3.0.   
We'll use the same one for both, the main difference between that  
Mailman 2.2 intends to /only/ update the web u/i while Mailman 3 is a  
fairly significant redesign intended to back Mailman with an object- 
relational mapper tied to a relational database.

There are many Python-based templating systems out there.  The primary  
requirement for Mailman 3 is good i18n support so that we can do  
exactly what you describe.  I want to be able to write the templates  
once for all languages, do source string extraction and merge that  
into the standard catalogs, then use the normal translation services  
to render language-specific web pages.  We have not made a decision on  
which templating system to use yet.

If you're interesting in helping out with this effort, please join  
mailman-developers.

- -Barry

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