A comment field related to a translation can aid the discussion on specific strings and gives the opportunity to feedback comment to the translator(s). At a minimum a single comment text field should be linked to a source string. All translators can read/write this same comment field. Compare POedit and KBabel.

This feature request came up during the Dutch translation sprint.

CommentFileSizeAuthor
#12 02.png17.29 KBnord1dea
#12 01.png2.6 KBnord1dea
#11 comments.png9.23 KBDeNelo
#5 1.png8.1 KBLex-DRL
#5 2.png14.8 KBLex-DRL
#5 3.png6.6 KBLex-DRL

Comments

gábor hojtsy’s picture

gábor hojtsy
he/him
Primary language Hungarian
Location Hungary
commented

Hm, good idea. But this definitely needs to be hidden by default. Most of the time, you will not need this field, right?

I wonder whether relating nodes as discussion pages (ala wikis) to source text when desired is any good idea. Unfortunately the discussion page lacks display of the translation and suggestions (as in the wiki), and vice versa. However, it would let translators use a well known system (either wiki page or node with comments) in their language group (thinking of you using organic groups module). Thoughts?

sutharsan’s picture

sutharsan commented

Discussions per string are rare. The majority of the translation discussions are about which word to use for a translation. For this purpose we have plans to setup a wordlist using CCK-type nodes and one discussion thread per word. Other discussion are language style related. Also not string related. In my experience string related comment are no more than two lines. Wiki page comments would be an overkill.

Hiding a comment by default is no problem. If so, an indication should be present that comments are available. I add comments (in poEdit) to < 5% of the strings. Filtering a list on stings with comments would be ideal.

gábor hojtsy’s picture

gábor hojtsy
he/him
Primary language Hungarian
Location Hungary
commented
Version: 5.x-1.x-dev » 6.x-1.x-dev
hass’s picture

hass commented

Discussions per string are rare

I do not believe so. Often you need to comment why a string needs work... this could end with more suggestions and much more comments. It may need to act like a project issue node.

Lex-DRL’s picture

Lex-DRL commented
StatusFileSize
new Screenshot 36.6 KB
new Screenshot 214.8 KB
new Screenshot 18.1 KB

I've been redirected from here: #1062210: "Comments for translations" feature

please elaborate there on UI ideas for both entering and displaying comments.

As I wrote there, there is already example of this feature well-implemented, Notabenoid. Unfortunately that site is completely in russian, so I'll try to describe how it's done there:

  • Translation pages looks very similar to ones at l.d.o.
  • But the last column indicates existence of comments. If some string has comments related to it then there's an icon in that column in front of this string. See screenshot 1
  • If you click on that icon, a small javascript "window" (a layer, actually) appears containing a thread-like list of comments and simple form for adding a new one. See screenshot 2
    It has a source string instead of "Title" and comments doesn't have "Subject" since there's no need in it. It's important to mention, that "threads" are created one per source string, not one per translation/suggestion.
  • If there is no comments yet for some string, there's nothing in that column. But if you hover your mouse above it, a small icon appears allowing to create new thread. It looks like "string has comments" icon, but has different color. See screenshot 3

This is just a description of something already existing in the web. And here are some my suggestions for making this feature even better:

  • Comments in "thread" can have "common" fields just like issues at d.o. So if the value of this field is changed in the comment, it's changed for entire "thread". This way some fields can be added, like "Status" at d.o, which will allow moderators to easily track updates in translations.
  • Also, each comment can be "bound" to specific suggestion(s)/translation(s). So that if the translation this comment is bound to is declined, than it's also greyed out ("dimmed") at "thread window".
  • If this "binding" to translations is implemented, than a side panel can be added to the "window". This panel lists all translations added to the current string (even declined ones). It does double job:
    1. it actually lists all added translations (as we know, declined strings are still at the base, but are not displayed at translation page), which can be useful for later re-approving;
    2. if you select some translation, only comments related to it will be displayed/highlighted (if multiple translations are selected, than comments can be highlighted with different colors), which will allow to separate different discussions about one string while keeping everything in one place.

I'm not familiar with Drupal API and don't know if what I describe is possible at all. So this is nothing more than just an end-user's suggestion. But I hope it helps.

hass’s picture

hass commented

I like it very much. This really helps a lot. Can you extract a patch?

Lex-DRL’s picture

Lex-DRL commented

to haas:
Sorry, can't understand what you mean. Is your question addressed to me?
I don't know if Notabenoid is build on Drupal or not. Most likely, it's not.
I just posted a suggestion of what the UI for this feature can look like.

andyceo’s picture

andyceo commented

Very good idea. I think we need this feature strongly.

podarok’s picture

podarok
🇺🇦 he/him/his
Primary language Ukrainian
Location Ukraine
commented

related issues #1375838: [META] feature requests born from cyrillic l.d.o

allukraine’s picture

allukraine commented
Version: 6.x-1.x-dev » 7.x-1.x-dev
Priority: Normal » Major

A very important extension, it is really much help to translators.

DeNelo’s picture

DeNelo commented
StatusFileSize
new comments.png9.23 KB

Just showing any comment attached to a string in a po file would be helpful.
I would like to use this module for community-driven localization of a certain piece of software, and consistently showing the comment attached to the current string would be really helpful.
There's even room for it, as the screenshot shows.

nord1dea’s picture

nord1dea commented
Issue summary: View changes
StatusFileSize
new 01.png2.6 KB
new 02.png17.29 KB

I want to go back:
At one of the last meeting of Russian Team we decided to implement the comments functionality without reference to the LDO for the time being.
The result was js-script on Userscripts.org with database on private server.

Here is it:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/184606

Here's how it looks:
Comments_scr1
Comments_scr2

I think we can use it until such a functionality is not implemented in l10n_server, and then just transfer the comments.
But now we have one inconvenient feature - external authorization. It would be great to use SSO on LDO. Who can help us with this?