Translation & Localisation
Time has passed and the forum now has many user written guides on how to setup a specific game or how to create a special usecase. Better and better videos were created to show the new user a simple follow guideline on how to do things or tell advanced users a few secrets. Finally there are the streamers who occasionally explain to their audience how they setup something.
ISBoxer developed into a even more premium multiboxing software with even more awesome features.
Sadly, the only thing that did not evolved in the last few years is the translation and localisation. Only a few translations were added in July/August 2011 to the ISBoxer wiki and even fewer guides or videos exist in another native language on the web.
In all the games i multiboxed over the years i got many tells. Many hate tells but also tells from people who were interested in how this was possible and some of them asked later in the conversation in how they can try it by themself.
I had always a bad feeling when some of those people reported a few days later that they tried but then gave up because they did not understand enough (technical) english.
The idea of translating stuff in the wiki or some subtitles for videos or even guides of other users i got quite some time ago but did not had the patience back then to finish all the work to a point i was okay to publish it.
Although i do not have that much time at the moment let's try it again
ISBoxer is using a MediaWiki and i looked at their wiki to see if there is some sort of rule or policy on how to handle a wiki with multiple languages.
Unfortunately they use the Extension Translate which insert markers with an increasing number like <!--T:###--> inside the original text to split the text into smaller units which can be identified and translated easier by the software later on and let the extension know what changed between changes on the original page.
Problem here is that if someone rearranges or delete those marker, the software is confused and breaks all translations.
I do not know how everybody else is editing a wiki page: Some people are using a simple editor to write some text and later copy&paste the whole text inside the wiki, some other use the WYSIWYG editor offered by the wiki. In both cases someone has to pay attention for the location of these markers if editing a page.
I have the feeling that installing extentions simply for translation is a bit overkill so i will use the following system which Lax approved/suggested quite some time ago in the chat.
For each language a subpage is created under the original page with their language code, for example:
This has the disadvantage that every link still has the english name and the title can not be translated.
For links that need a better name my personal choice would be something like this:
- Code:
Anleitung:ISBoxer mit mehreren Computern benutzen redirect to HOWTO:Use ISBoxer With Multiple Computers/de
Hauptseite redirect to Main page/de
RIFT:Kurzanleitung redirect to RIFT:Quick Start Guide/de
de:Hauptseite redirect to Main page/de
RIFT:de:Kurzanleitung redirect to RIFT:Quick Start Guide/de
de:RIFT:Kurzanleitung redirect to RIFT:Quick Start Guide/de
The first 3 examples have the best results but may collide in rare cases with english or other languages depending on the name.
The last 3 are examples of how to avoid that but i am not sure if the de: interferes with a namespace of the wiki. If RIFT: is a namespace itself then in which order should it be arranged?
What do you guys think?
Another point i like to mention is the localisation.
Most of the terms used in ISBoxer and InnerSpace are hardcoded and can not be translated which makes the translation of the normal wiki pages somehow painful because all the options and checkboxes names cant be translated.
...
Please have this in mind for the next upcoming version of IS/ISBoxer to give us users the possibility to change all text messages.
Thank you.