Language overlays or: On the way to finally resolve important translation issues in Koha
Dear Koha community, Koha is translated in almost 50 languages - but it has no possibility to switch between languages for authorised values and item types (or more generally: database content). This is a long outstanding issue, see the discussion on Bug 7789 (2012-03-22). And it is a really painful one for multilingual countries, organisations, schools, museums, libraries... Especially the OPAC looks not very professional when untranslated text pops up. There are several more or less ugly workarounds: 1) Have all language versions in the same description, e.g. for OPAC_SUG something like "Damaged | Beschädigt | Abîmé" "Upcoming title by popular author | Neuer Titel eines populären Autors |Oeuvre... ... ... " 2) Have some sophisticated JavaScript tricks 3) Have custom Plug-ins 5) Locally tweak the code 6) Provide custom packages A couple of days ago I filed Bug 14063 - Implement language overlay for authorised values It is a small, minimal invasive patch (19 lines) that uses additional entries in the table authorised_values. To use it, one can simply create an additional entry with a trailing language code, e.g. BSELL-de-DE or BSELL-fr-FR It can be used "As is" without any changes to the database or to the user interface. A similar patch for Item types (Bug 14064) is in preparation. In comment #5 on Bug 14063, Joubu proposes to have a more generic solution with a table with columns "type" column (will contain "authorised_values", "item_types", "sysprefs", etc.) and "lang" ('fr-FR', 'de-DE', etc.). The complexity will be to implement an ergonomic view to edit the different translation. I totally agree with this. Typo3 CMS, for example, works with such language overlays e.g. for page content, and it works great. I'm best willing to help to implement such a generic solution. However, my concern is that it could take a very long time to get there. Now I have following questions: - In what (realistic) timeframe / for what Koha Version could such a generic solution be implemented? - Based on your experience, what development time would be necessary? - Who could contribute to this (time, maybe funding)? - What do you think about kind of "Taskforce language overlay" - What do you think to have Bug 14063 (Signed-off) and later Bug 14064 as a transitory solution to fix the issue for the most exposed places (e.g. Search interface in OPAC)? - I know and share concerns about temporary solutions, but we simply would need a small SQL script to move the language overlays from tables "authorised_values" and "itemtypes" to the new overlay table (once the generic solution is ready). Looking forward to your comments! Have a great day! Marc Véron (mveron)
Hi Marc & everybody else Marc Véron schrieb am 30.04.2015
- What do you think to have Bug 14063 (Signed-off) and later Bug 14064 as a transitory solution to fix the issue for the most exposed places
I would like this to happen and I would appreciate if it could be considered for 3.20, even though it missed feature freeze. I signed off on 14063, it's a really tiny, yet very effective patch. I understand that in mostly monolingual contexts (be that English, French or anything else) it may be considered not a big deal, but for multilingual environments, speaking of Koha as translated in a lof of languages but failing in these details is more than just inconvenient. -- Mirko -- Mirko Tietgen mirko@abunchofthings.net http://koha.abunchofthings.net
Hi to all, Il 30/04/2015 12:07, Marc Véron ha scritto:
A couple of days ago I filed Bug 14063 - Implement language overlay for authorised values
It is a small, minimal invasive patch (19 lines) that uses additional entries in the table authorised_values. To use it, one can simply create an additional entry with a trailing language code, e.g. BSELL-de-DE or BSELL-fr-FR It can be used "As is" without any changes to the database or to the user interface.
for me the patch done by Marc is a good start. We can start with this in 3.20. Bye -- Dr. Zeno Tajoli Servizi Innovativi -- Automazione Biblioteche z.tajoli@cineca.it fax +39 02 2135520 CINECA - Sede operativa di Segrate
for me the patch done by Marc is a good start. We can start with this in 3.20.
I agree with the patch, did a similar solution for multilang notices some time ago and it worked. But it's a workaround. But I'm afraid that we are late for 3.20 :( Also agree with Joubu that we need a more generic solution, one that provides a fallback lang to assure that you always show the same number of options, translated or not. And I'll be glad to help Bernardo
Hi Marc, Thanks for the mail :) Have a look at bug 14100 to know what I have in mind. Cheers, Jonathan 2015-04-30 12:07 GMT+02:00 Marc Véron <veron@veron.ch>:
Dear Koha community,
Koha is translated in almost 50 languages - but it has no possibility to switch between languages for authorised values and item types (or more generally: database content).
This is a long outstanding issue, see the discussion on Bug 7789 (2012-03-22). And it is a really painful one for multilingual countries, organisations, schools, museums, libraries...
Especially the OPAC looks not very professional when untranslated text pops up.
There are several more or less ugly workarounds: 1) Have all language versions in the same description, e.g. for OPAC_SUG something like "Damaged | Beschädigt | Abîmé" "Upcoming title by popular author | Neuer Titel eines populären Autors |Oeuvre... ... ... " 2) Have some sophisticated JavaScript tricks 3) Have custom Plug-ins 5) Locally tweak the code 6) Provide custom packages
A couple of days ago I filed Bug 14063 - Implement language overlay for authorised values
It is a small, minimal invasive patch (19 lines) that uses additional entries in the table authorised_values. To use it, one can simply create an additional entry with a trailing language code, e.g. BSELL-de-DE or BSELL-fr-FR It can be used "As is" without any changes to the database or to the user interface.
A similar patch for Item types (Bug 14064) is in preparation.
In comment #5 on Bug 14063, Joubu proposes to have a more generic solution with a table with columns "type" column (will contain "authorised_values", "item_types", "sysprefs", etc.) and "lang" ('fr-FR', 'de-DE', etc.). The complexity will be to implement an ergonomic view to edit the different translation.
I totally agree with this. Typo3 CMS, for example, works with such language overlays e.g. for page content, and it works great.
I'm best willing to help to implement such a generic solution. However, my concern is that it could take a very long time to get there.
Now I have following questions: - In what (realistic) timeframe / for what Koha Version could such a generic solution be implemented? - Based on your experience, what development time would be necessary? - Who could contribute to this (time, maybe funding)? - What do you think about kind of "Taskforce language overlay" - What do you think to have Bug 14063 (Signed-off) and later Bug 14064 as a transitory solution to fix the issue for the most exposed places (e.g. Search interface in OPAC)? - I know and share concerns about temporary solutions, but we simply would need a small SQL script to move the language overlays from tables "authorised_values" and "itemtypes" to the new overlay table (once the generic solution is ready).
Looking forward to your comments!
Have a great day!
Marc Véron (mveron)
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participants (5)
-
Bernardo Gonzalez Kriegel -
Jonathan Druart -
Marc Véron -
Mirko Tietgen -
Tajoli Zeno