XYplorer Beta Club

I decided to add multilingual support to XYplorer this year.

This will be a lot of work (I estimate 6 months), but there is no way around it. It has to be done.

Anybody who wants to take part in this project may reply in this thread stating the language he wants to contribute. The translation work will include the Help file, all interface labels (everything you see in the GUI), and all message box texts. The work for each language should be done by one person (or group of persons), because terms in Help and GUI must match perfectly. All languages known to Unicode will be supported.

The first step for me is to "open up" the app for injection of *.lng file data. This will take maybe 4 months. Hard to say. I'll keep you informed. Only when this step is completed the translators can begin with their work.

No more features will be added to the app while Multilingual Support is in progress. Of course, any bugs are fixed ASAP as always.

Don

SkyFrontier ready to roll. Brazilian Portuguese here.

admin wrote:I decided to add multilingual support to XYplorer this year.

What? Are you sure? ...because...

This will be a lot of work (I estimate 6 months), but there is no way around it. It has to be done.

Sorry, but based on how many complaints we've had over years about this, it just can't be justified...NO way...at least that's what's been said before...

No more features will be added to the app while Multilingual Support is in progress.

Come on, Don, it's not April Fool's day yet...surely ye jest! You not adding features for that long? You couldn't stand it...we know you better than that! Are you sure you didn't post this after a few too many beers?

j_c_hallgren wrote:

This will be a lot of work (I estimate 6 months), but there is no way around it. It has to be done.

Sorry, but based on how many complaints we've had over years about this, it just can't be justified...NO way...at least that's what's been said before...

Huh, what do you mean? I get tons of requests for Multilingual Support daily...

admin wrote:Huh, what do you mean? I get tons of requests for Multilingual Support daily...

ok so we have no clue as to what you get via email but from posts/threads here, plus it only got 8 votes yesterday on "How would you improve XY" while built-in zip+rar got 56 votes and that comes up much more often here...not saying it's not something to do at some point, but i'd say it can be done over time while other stuff is still ongoing...

The biggest obstacle I see is how much text space may be needed for some languages...like English caption takes 22 chars but in language 'x', it requires 27 chars and that won't fit without GUI chgs.

I'd maybe suggest giving translators a max nbr of chars that can be used for each text item and see how that works.

Hallgren:

I'd maybe suggest giving translators a max nbr of chars that can be used for each text item and see how that works.

As a translator having several published translations I must say that space is not a limiter for a creative, versatile translator. And yes, despite not having found any software with such declared limitations, I agree it *may* be a good idea trying to work like that.

Those who don't understand enough English to use the program are not posting in an English forum. But I happen to speak the main Western European languages well enough to understand the emails I'm getting.

Conc. the technical aspects, I have been thinking about this for a long time, and I will come up with some guidelines when the time is ripe. Generally, however, the results are in the responsibility of the translator; since I cannot pay the translator (apart from giving him free licenses) I'm not in the position to demand anything here. I can even imagine that translations are traded on a separate market -- it's not my business; I will just open up the app for any language, be it Klingon.

Sure, I can do Hebrew.

Good move Don. This will up the sales. I assume you'll do the German version yourself.
Also, assuming the language thing is done will the future versions XY wait for all the language files to be updated before its release? In other words, will beta or full releases be slowed down? Or will english versions will be released as usual and other languages have to do the catching up?
If its the latter, I am happy as ever.

serendipity wrote:Good move Don. This will up the sales. I assume you'll do the German version yourself.
Also, assuming the language thing is done will the future versions XY wait for all the language files to be updated before its release? In other words, will beta or full releases be slowed down? Or will english versions will be released as usual and other languages have to do the catching up?
If its the latter, I am happy as ever.

Yes, German will be my Guinee pig regarding the app modifications. I will not do the translations though. No time. And no skills. I hardly use German software so I have only a vague idea how certain things are called in German. No joke. E.g. "Default Tab" in German? I cannot even guess...

Yes, everything will be slowed down a bit, but mainly because coding will sometimes (whenever messages or interface elements are added or changed) be a little more work. I will not wait for the translations to catch up though. This job remains with the translators. As you said it: "... english versions will be released as usual and other languages have to do the catching up"

admin wrote:

serendipity wrote:Good move Don. This will up the sales. I assume you'll do the German version yourself.
Also, assuming the language thing is done will the future versions XY wait for all the language files to be updated before its release? In other words, will beta or full releases be slowed down? Or will english versions will be released as usual and other languages have to do the catching up?
If its the latter, I am happy as ever.

Yes, German will be my Guinee pig regarding the app modifications. I will not do the translations though. No time. And no skills. I hardly use German software so I have only a vague idea how certain things are called in German. No joke. E.g. "Default Tab" in German? I cannot even guess...

Yes, everything will be slowed down a bit, but mainly because coding will sometimes (whenever messages or interface elements are added or changed) be a little more work. I will not wait for the translations to catch up though. This job remains with the translators. As you said it: "... english versions will be released as usual and other languages have to do the catching up"

Thanks for clarifying. So when does the 4-month-no-release time start?

admin wrote:I decided to add multilingual support to XYplorer this year.

oh my, it's some bad luck. yesterday i intentionally went to giveawayoftheday.com, but accidentally got to russian part of it, and as i know it well i read some posts there. mostly there were complains about cost and no-russian-language, many comparisons with other alternative FM(especially free ones) in no-XY favor, and as the whole i saw those people didn't even really try XY(some even thought there is no 2-panel view ).
as a result i thought 2 things:
- i see there are many non-english native in forum, but all do good work with XY, and have no problem in communicating and helping each other;
- it's so good XY is english only, 'cause if it wasn't- all those "yellers" would come here(to XY forum) and start asking "to improve" XY to be like "not worse than TC".

but even more bad luck would be this :

admin wrote:No more features will be added to the app while Multilingual Support is in progress.

at the very same site, i proudly wrote among text of my comment, that XY develops almost daily.. and herу we go now - "no candies" (especially considering how many exciting new features were to come!).

i understand the reasons of such decision, but somewhat upset about how many efforts would be spent for this. + as i did some translations, i know that problem of different word sizes is a real disaster with some languages = multilang in most of soft, for me, ends with "another bad translation"(not always by an interpreter fault, but interface demands) and usage of english(which i'm quite fine with ).

I understand. Let's see how it goes. German is a very clumsy language which needs lots of space, comparable only to French I think. I will quickly see whether it can work at all. So you still have a slight chance that I give up...

admin wrote:...
This will be a lot of work (I estimate 6 months), but there is no way around it. It has to be done.
...
No more features will be added to the app while Multilingual Support is in progress. Of course, any bugs are fixed ASAP as always.

Oh

As my English is at least good enough to use an English program, including documentation, I think this is a bad idea
OK: if I would have problems with English...

I have no idea how many possible customers could be affected.

But thinking of technical things I (and others) are waiting to be implemented: that's a lot of time...
...so I don't know: should I wish you good luck?

OK: I wish you good luck with your decision!

Let me give you only one example why I think this is a good decision: A typical German company would LOVE to buy software from Cologne, Germany, but ONLY if it is in GERMAN. Whatever the reasons, this is a fact, and IMO this fact currently costs me a fortune.