HTML Translation:Project Progress

Toolkit enhancements

A number of changes needed to be made to the toolkit to facilitate the project. The toolkit was firstly designed to allow for the translation of computer software. It was now to be used to translate content. Key content being raw HTML and wiki syntax.

The existing HTML converter was examined and enhanced to allow all content from the old FMFI static website to be translated. The existing text converter was enhanced to allow both dokuwiki and mediawiki syntax to be processed which allows any wiki content to be extracted and converted to a translatable format.

Levels of translation

The 3 components of the translation were used to cover 3 levels of engagement. The first which required the most retooling and hand holding was the translation of the Creative Commons licenses into Afrikaans, Northern Sotho and Zulu. In this process Translate.org.za did the complete conversions, managed the translators and then submitted the translations to creative commons.

The second was the translation of wiki content for the toolkit itself. In this an existing localisation community exists, the translator ready content was published and this simply allowed them to translate the Pootle users' guide, which was translated into 6 additional languages.

The last community was the FMFI project itself. Here the existing static HTML website was converted, the content was published and participants in the FMFI project where encouraged to translate. As can be seen none of the content was translated.