I am completely in agreement with this all, however, there are a couple of immediate roadblocks to working on content right now.
The first is that the English document is not set up exactly the same as the French - there are many differences in structure that I've already encountered. So we'll have to do some work to bring them in line somehow. This can begin by restructuring the two documents, but I think a much better way would be to work on creating a po template.
If we do work on a po template right now, I think it should be based on the French document entirely, since that document seems to be much more up-to-date. However, it's been difficult for me to determine which document to base my editing from since I don't really know what the most recent work is. While I would like to volunteer to start on po templates, I don't think I am in any way qualified, as I don't have deep knowledge of the syntax or of the user manual.
Which puts me at an impasse, since I don't think I can do a whole lot of meaningful work at the moment translating and updating the English version.
The second roadblock is that, if I am writing new content or updating old content, I feel like I'm bound by the structure that exists unless I get approval from one of you "senators" to change it, because that will also mean the French document structure has to change as well. For example, the Intro and SVG sections in the English are now completely rewritten by me as of last night, but they also have a new structure (which I believe was necessary to make them coherent). I threw caution to the wind and made the changes, which I'm now regretting following this discussion.
If I were to make a decision to work on something right now, my first instinct would be to copy the French xml doc into the new En doc separated files, copy all the useful English text back into the appropriate places, and then begin work. However, I know that as soon as I get all that done, someone can easily change the French document structure again, so we're back at the beginning problem. Which is why I suggested above that our next move should be to get po stuff into operation; and I think it's important enough that it should be done before any more content work is done. Otherwise, attempting work on more than one translation at a time and keeping the same document structure will be a nightmare that I really don't have the ability to be a part of.
I guess I would like someone to tell me what to do next so that I can do something that will be useful and won't foul things up until the document structure mess is sorted out.
I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound like an upstart, I just want to get some work done and help you guys and Inkscape; but I tend to be brutally logical.
JF
radar.map35@...6... wrote:
yep, i was not talking about buig differences but local, just to adjust a description to some specificities. So we mainly agree ;)
pygmee
But then you cannot use all the po tools anymore. I know that Christoph of Scribus is of this "local versions are free" opinion, but I think we don't have the manpower for that. I personally would translate/adjust some sentences when I have time, but I surely won't hunt down useful changes by hand.
IMO we need para-by-para consistency to get the user-manual started, unless suddenly 5 maintainers for each language pop up.
Cheers Colin