Localization of Noscript halted?

Bug reports and enhancement requests
Post Reply
sonickydon
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 8:36 am

Localization of Noscript halted?

Post by sonickydon »

Is there some reason that the localization of Noscript has been neglected for the latest two releases?
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; el-GR; rv:1.9.1) Gecko/20090624 Firefox/3.5
User avatar
therube
Ambassador
Posts: 7924
Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2009 4:17 pm
Location: Maryland USA

Re: Localization of Noscript halted?

Post by therube »

Neglected how? Something not working as expected?

Code: Select all

<em:locale>content/noscript/en-US/</em:locale>
        <!-- LOCALECHROME START -->
        <em:locale>locale/ar/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/be-BY/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/bg-BG/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/ca-AD/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/cs-CZ/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/da-DK/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/de-AT/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/de-DE/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/el-GR/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/en-GB/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/es-AR/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/es-ES/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/et-EE/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/fa-IR/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/fi-FI/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/fr-FR/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/gl-ES/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/he-IL/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/hr-HR/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/hu-HU/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/ko-KR/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/id-ID/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/it-IT/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/ja-JP/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/km-KH/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/lt-LT/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/mk-MK/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/nb-NO/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/nl-NL/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/pl-PL/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/pt-BR/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/pt-PT/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/ro-RO/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/ru-RU/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/sk-SK/noscript/</em:locale> 
        <em:locale>locale/sl-SI/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/sr-YU/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/sv-SE/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/th-TH/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/tr-TR/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/uk-UA/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/vi-VN/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/zh-CN/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/zh-TW/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/cy-GB/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/sr-RS/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/ms-MY/noscript/</em:locale>
        <em:locale>locale/kk-KZ/noscript/</em:locale>
        <!-- LOCALECHROME STOP -->
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.19) Gecko/20110420 SeaMonkey/2.0.14 Pinball NoScript FlashGot AdblockPlus
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.22) Gecko/20090605 SeaMonkey/1.1.17
User avatar
Giorgio Maone
Site Admin
Posts: 9454
Joined: Wed Mar 18, 2009 11:22 pm
Location: Palermo - Italy
Contact:

Re: Localization of Noscript halted?

Post by Giorgio Maone »

There seems to be some problem at the Babelzilla site (I've seen almost no localization activity last month), but I've had no time to investigate yet.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.2; en-US; rv:1.9.1) Gecko/20090624 Firefox/3.5 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
sonickydon
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 8:36 am

Re: Localization of Noscript halted?

Post by sonickydon »

After the introduction of ABE in NoScript we had a small issue on Babelzilla and lost some localizations. I had completed the localization before the table crash we had and normally you should have got the translated files before that, but anyway, despite the heavy work load i did tried to complete NoScript localization again as soon as the WTS was back online, since it's one of the most popular extensions and personally i consider it of critical importance. Since then i must have gotten 3-4 Noscript updates, yet the ABE strings (plus a couple more) are still in english.
Apart from that, there's another issue for my locale. Since the 1.9.2.3 version there's two locales for Greek, el and el-GR. There's no need to keep them both, the el locale was registered by mistake when the babelzilla admins merged the noscript id's back then and i didn't noticed it earlier though i did request the locale to be removed from the list. Please remove the el locale and keep only the el-GR for Greek.
Again, i do understand that localization is not your highest priority but keep in mind that a partially translated GUI degrades the overall user experience.
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; el; rv:1.9.1.2) Gecko/20090729 Firefox/3.5.2
User avatar
Giorgio Maone
Site Admin
Posts: 9454
Joined: Wed Mar 18, 2009 11:22 pm
Location: Palermo - Italy
Contact:

Re: Localization of Noscript halted?

Post by Giorgio Maone »

OK, I found why localization progresses after the Babelzilla database fiasco were not noticed by the NoScript build routine: the Babelzilla guys apparently decided also to change the directory layout of the downloadable tarball, putting all the locale directories at the top level. Therefore we kept comparing and packaging the older pre-debacle version. Worse, we got our top-level directory polluted with dozens of locale directories :(

Trying to cleanup this mess and upload an up-to-date 1.9.8.1 xpi on Babelzilla...
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.2; en-US; rv:1.9.1.2) Gecko/20090729 Firefox/3.5.2 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
sonickydon
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 8:36 am

Re: Localization of Noscript halted?

Post by sonickydon »

I guess the mess still exists...
I might as well have lost track of stable and experimental releases but the external filter tab is not localized in 19.9.80 and the latest version on babelzilla is 1.9.9.11.
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.3a5pre) Gecko/20100527 Minefield/3.7a5pre
User avatar
GµårÐïåñ
Lieutenant Colonel
Posts: 3365
Joined: Fri Mar 20, 2009 5:19 am
Location: PST - USA
Contact:

Re: Localization of Noscript halted?

Post by GµårÐïåñ »

As a lead (and often only) translator for MANY addons (over 25 of them) on babelzilla I can tell you that their system is extremely unstable and loses content constantly or mutates them improperly which has left me at the begging of the addon developers that I support to go back and REDO the whole thing again from scratch and its a nightmare.

The problem is that the language I support is not as easy to type as people think, so it is VERY time consuming to properly format it and then submit it, so the constant loss of data and mutations are a big huge waste of time. I have formally told my developers that I will get to it when they fix the problem, I cannot go and translate multiple times only to have the work lost, its ridiculous.

This is unfortunately an entirely babelzilla issue and the developers and the translators are ALL innocent bystanders who are becoming collateral damage now.
~.:[ Lï£ê ï§ å Lêmðñ åñÐ Ì Wåñ† M¥ Mðñê¥ ßå¢k ]:.~
________________ .: [ Major Mike's ] :. ________________
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3
sonickydon
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 8:36 am

Re: Localization of Noscript halted?

Post by sonickydon »

GµårÐïåñ wrote:As a lead (and often only) translator for MANY addons (over 25 of them) on babelzilla I can tell you that their system is extremely unstable and loses content constantly or mutates them improperly which has left me at the begging of the addon developers that I support to go back and REDO the whole thing again from scratch and its a nightmare.

The problem is that the language I support is not as easy to type as people think, so it is VERY time consuming to properly format it and then submit it, so the constant loss of data and mutations are a big huge waste of time. I have formally told my developers that I will get to it when they fix the problem, I cannot go and translate multiple times only to have the work lost, its ridiculous.

This is unfortunately an entirely babelzilla issue and the developers and the translators are ALL innocent bystanders who are becoming collateral damage now.
As a lead (and also often only) translator for more than 70 addons on babelzilla i can not confirm your arguments.
The only major data loss happened approximately one year ago and even that only affected a mere 5% of the overall work i had done there.
It is true that the system is not perfect in any way.
Developers can always propose changes to the system and i'm sure the babelzilla admins would be happy to implement changes that would facilitate the process.

The main issue however is not the babelzilla-developers relationship but the image of highly popular addons (like noscript) that degrades with partially localized gui's.
Specially for Noscript - a security related addon, i believe that it is essential to look as professional as it works since that raises the trust factor for users.
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686 (x86_64); el; rv:1.9.2.4) Gecko/20100527 Firefox/3.6.4
User avatar
Giorgio Maone
Site Admin
Posts: 9454
Joined: Wed Mar 18, 2009 11:22 pm
Location: Palermo - Italy
Contact:

Re: Localization of Noscript halted?

Post by Giorgio Maone »

Latest NoScript version have not been submitted for translation on Babelzilla for two reasons:
  1. Newest changes were either highly experimental (external filters) and not expected to be used by the mass of users (especially by those who require a non-English localization), or did not have any UI front-end to be localized
  2. The "new" Babelzilla translation system is incompatible with the way NoScript's XPI is packaged, requiring a special build for Babelzilla only to be submitted (otherwise translations get lost, as happened repeatedly), and special work to take the translation back when they're ready
The two things together caused me to choose deferring localization until I've got the time to automate #2 and critical UI features for mass consumption which actually badly need to be localized are introduced.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.2; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3
User avatar
GµårÐïåñ
Lieutenant Colonel
Posts: 3365
Joined: Fri Mar 20, 2009 5:19 am
Location: PST - USA
Contact:

Re: Localization of Noscript halted?

Post by GµårÐïåñ »

sonickydon wrote:As a lead (and also often only) translator for more than 70 addons on babelzilla i can not confirm your arguments.
The only major data loss happened approximately one year ago and even that only affected a mere 5% of the overall work i had done there.
It is true that the system is not perfect in any way.
Developers can always propose changes to the system and i'm sure the babelzilla admins would be happy to implement changes that would facilitate the process.
With all due respect, just because you haven't experienced issues, doesn't mean that there aren't any.
The main issue however is not the babelzilla-developers relationship but the image of highly popular addons (like noscript) that degrades with partially localized gui's.
Specially for Noscript - a security related addon, i believe that it is essential to look as professional as it works since that raises the trust factor for users.
As to the second part of your statement, as Giorgio has already responded, I will not repeat it since he beat me to it, so just refer to his post. Some developers don't have much respect for the work that goes into translating and can waste your time when its not necessary, it seems Giorgio was more considerate.
~.:[ Lï£ê ï§ å Lêmðñ åñÐ Ì Wåñ† M¥ Mðñê¥ ßå¢k ]:.~
________________ .: [ Major Mike's ] :. ________________
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3
Post Reply