Translation: radical dreaming required
I'm working with two different Ubuntu teams right now that translate long documents. We have not found a human-friendly tool chain that allows translators to be language experts without having to also be a command line wizard. Each translator is forced to come up with their own way of doing things. Some are able to cope just fine but others are being cut out of the action because they have no sane way of dealing with the source files.
On the list of doc formats to deal with are book-length XML files (broken down by chapter in most cases) and subtitle files (which are basically plain text with time codes). In the interest of using an integrated system I posted a feature request on Launchpad and asked for a sane way to deal with files that were already stored in the code section of Launchpad. Within a day the feature request was flat out rejected and the bug was closed and tossed.
So here is my challenge to everyone out there...if you dared to dream, just a little bit, if you dared to create a system that was easier to use and took advantage of the power of the intarwebs instead of an individual's ability to bang on command line tools, what would the future of translation look like? How would you create a Web-based (or desktop-based) translation toolkit? What would it look like? How would data be pulled in, be worked on in "draft" format and be saved and pushed back out again?
I know how Drupal does it, I know about the tools I've built, and I know about my future plans for audio translations. Now I want to know your dream for dealing with the translation of long documents. Forget the patches... sketches, screenshots and radical dreaming are all welcome!
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The bug you mention has been reopened BTW. I am glad this exposes the arrogant attitude of one of the commenters - who can't bother with anyone that won't use command line.
For the record, I've done a bunch of translation, including .po, subtitles, and so on. I hated every bit of it that had anything to do with command line (and it always has). Tedious file format conversions, special characters all over the place, repetitive phrases that you have to input time and time again... Some tools deals with part of that but as a rookie translator one can quickly run tired of even searching for them.
So my first wish would be "no command line".
My second wish would be "wiki in as much places as possible".
A strong wiki-like editing component would be highly attractive to me. Remember we often have to deal with translating not only strings but also videos, audio, screenshots and other embedded content. Wikis deal nicely with versioning and attachments, maybe a wiki-like editing component could be added to the current translation support in LP.
My third wish would be "works offline". So bzr seems suitable for that, however it breaks my first wish for now. Perhaps having a translating (offline) Launchpad client would fit that description.
You'll come across many people that'll tell you it's impossible. I'd strongly encourage you to take that as a strong indication it's a good idea :)