[Libreoffice] LibreOffice WikiHelp

[Jan Holesovsky]

Hi Sophie,

On 2010-12-13 at 14:05 +0300, Sophie Gautier wrote:

> > I have subscribed to the l10n mailing list just on Friday, after I
> > learned that there were some discussions there I was not aware of until
> > then.
> 
> This is the list for the people doing the work you're currently 
> removing, so you should have come first to this list :-)

I hope I am not removing anyone's work; I just want to change the
workflow a bit, hopefully for better :-)  And also yes, this is not set
in stone, there are several prerequisites for the last step (wikihelp
being an authoritative source for the help) that clearly depend on you -
the translators and documentation writers.

There are many technical solutions possible, including uploading the
English wikihelp pages to pootle (so far it is done per paragraph
anyway), and having chosen languages read-only in wikihelp, generated
from the English version + pootle.

> > Also, why should be your native language just a translation of an
> > English help?  Should you have people that can improve the help, but
> > cannot speak English, why should they be bound to translating only, when
> > they can author the text?  Why should be the French help just a
> > translation of an English help, when it can be an own (better?) version?
> 
> This is all the difference between documentation and the help. Creating 
> content is much more difficult than translating it and doesn't have the 
> same cost. So offering the help files for translation ensure that all 
> languages have access to the same basis of *accurate* information. This 
> is what Help is and why it should stay in a localization process.

Maybe I am entering a thin ice here, but do not think we have a good
help as of now.  There is so few information there, in many times in the
form "'Insert Picture' functionality inserts a picture from a file." ;-)

We need to grow the family of the documentation writers, and we cannot
do that by using the current tools.  Authoring the .xhp files as we have
now has a terribly steep learning curve (see the description of the xml
language that is used for that, or the description of how to use the
extension for the help authoring
http://documentation.openoffice.org/online_help/helpers/helpauthoring/guide/OOo2HelpAuthoring.pdf).

So we need to do the work easier not only for the translators, but for
the help authors, or the documentation team in general, too.  And I
believe that with wiki, this has the biggest potential to scale.

> Offering the same information at the lowest cost as possible.
> If it needs to be completed, lets do it as we have done until now : 
> using links pointing to the wiki (see the Calc functions, as an example).

I am sorry I haven't stressed this enough still: For 3.3, I am just
importing the help to the wikihelp, there is no change in your
processes.

> Just an example : we often have to correct one string in the UI, to make 
> sure it's changed in all the files where this string is appearing, we 
> just grep and change the string. You won't be able to do that on a wiki. 

It is again solvable, it is easy to provide dumps of the wiki (believe
it or not, bzipped it has only about 1.4M per language), for the offline
grepping.

> Also we make large use of suggestions and comments on strings, we work 
> off line, we use translation memory and glossaries, etc. All these 
> tooling ensure a quality of our work that you won't be able to use on a 
> wiki.

I think the biggest issue is the offline editing; and I think here we
can use the Wiki Publisher
(http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/wikipublisher)  to
edit the pages in LibreOffice.  I did not test it yet, but if the
extension misses the functionality to merge the changes done in the
wiki, it will be easy to plug it to LibreOffice document merge feature.

> > As you might have noticed, anybody can ask for the git account, and
> > anybody with a bigger contribution is offered with write access.
> 
> "with bigger contribution" it is different from a wiki where anybody is 
> able to create an account and start to work.

It is just up to the wiki setup - we can of course have a group of
admins who will be giving rights just to the selected people, etc.

> yes, provided you can discuss with this people, on a wiki, you just 
> create a account and can stay anonymous, unfortunately. Really, all the 
> l10n teams have spent nights on these files, we wouldn't like see them 
> destroy by a bot.

Understood - please see my other mail to JBF about fighting spam.

> No you misunderstand what I say, reviewing is the same for me,

I see, OK.

>  but a 
> wiki is just open to every body without knowledge of stylistic, 
> linguistic, and so on.

No, it does not have to be open to everybody, even the account creation
can be restricted to selected group of people only.

> Most of the time I've posted also on the dev list, so you may not have 
> miss mine. But surely, Martin and Rimas one. I'll try to find them when 
> I can reach the archives of the list.

Sorry, I missed yours, if you mean "HC2 l10n process" :-(  The best is
to CC: me explicitly if you need the answer quickly, normally I just
scan the ML subjects quickly, read the interesting ones, and read the
rest of the messages later in batches.

Regards,
Kendy