Blog entries from OpenStreetMap SoC students and mentors

Initial release of the i18n branch of osm rails-port

makghosh — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 05:34:02 +0200

Now, we have a working i18n branch for the osm rails_port. This setup is done by using globalize and click-to-globalize plugins. As of now all/most strings of website can be translated using the present translation interface. We even have l10n statistics, translation update feeds and more…
SVN Branch: [http://svn.openstreetmap.org/sites/rails_port_branches/i18n/]
Wikipage: [http://tinyurl.com/osm-i18n]
More detailed writeup: [http://makghosh.googlepages.com/gsoc-writeup.pdf]
Loads of thanks to my mentor Mikel Maron and the entire osm community for guiding and helping me out in internationalizing the rails-port
Another major chunk of work that will follow this is map-tile localization. Also there are some enhancements to be done listed in todo section of the wikipage. So discussions are open. And, i’m really glad that I passed my final evaluation of Google SoC, thanks again goes to my mentor It was a rocking summer.

Initial release of the i18n branch of osm rails-port

makghosh — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 05:34:02 +0200

Now, we have a working i18n branch for the osm rails_port. This setup is done by using globalize and click-to-globalize plugins. As of now all/most strings of website can be translated using the present translation interface. We even have l10n statistics, translation update feeds and more…
SVN Branch: [http://svn.openstreetmap.org/sites/rails_port_branches/i18n/]
Wikipage: [http://tinyurl.com/osm-i18n]
More detailed writeup: [http://makghosh.googlepages.com/gsoc-writeup.pdf]
Loads of thanks to my mentor Mikel Maron and the entire osm community for guiding and helping me out in internationalizing the rails-port
Another major chunk of work that will follow this is, map-tile localization. Also there are some enhancements to be done, listed in todo section of the wikipage. So discussions are open. And, i’m really glad that I passed my final evaluation of Google SoC, thanks again goes to my mentor It was a rocking summer!!

If there was one thing you wish you had known before…

Sjors — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 04:54:48 +0200

One of the questions in the student evaluation of the Google Summer of Code reads:
If there was one thing you wish you had known before getting started in Summer of Code, what would it be?
It is a very typical evaluation question and we all sortof know what it means and how to answer it. However, if you insist on thinking about it - and this is very acceptable behavior in some circles - it is actually a very difficult question.
I tend to read this question as follows: if you could meet yourself in the past, what would you tell your past self?
Well, I would probably give myself the final git repository, plus an external hard disk with as much of the interesting new information on the present day Internet as possible.
What would my past self do with that information? He would probably decide to use the outcome of a couple of footy matches to make a decent living. But apart from that, he would pick another project. Not because my project is uninteresting, but I really enjoyed that part of the project that I worked on. Continuing to work on this particular code base is really interesting, but not as interesting as it was to build it in the first place.
So my conclusion is: the more advice that I give to my past self, the less intersting his project would become. This is not a real problem however, because the information would provide him with many new opportunities.
I have the same view on Sudoko puzzles. A friend of mine wrote a computer program, while he was drinking beer in the pub, that could solve a lot of these puzzles. Many fanatical puzzlers would never consider using such a program; it would take away the fun.
I completely disagree with them. Now that my friend has releaved the world of The Sudoko Problem, mankind can move on to solving new problems.
I do not understand why people take such pleasure in creating artificial problems and then solving them over and over again, when there is an astonishing abundance of problems already out there waiting to be solved.
Just to make an even bolder statement: anyone who spends even a minute a day solving problems that have already been solved, should feel really guilty about climate change, poverty, diseases, slow public transport and millions and millions of other problems. Well at least, I tend to look at my own behavior from that perspective. All that without losing the ability to enjoy live; that is the real tricky part.

Language filtering of diary entries!!

makghosh — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 22:06:57 +0200

This feature was originally proposed by Dan Karran as a comment in one of my earlier posts. Anyway, so here we have “show all / filter by my language” tags in the user diaries’ pages. By default, all entries are shown. We can click on ‘filter by my language’ so as filter the posts by the locale selected by the user in his preferences. We can also have feeds for these filtered entries. The screen-shot of current diary entries page,
Image #1: openstreetmap-language-filter-diary-entries
And for this we need to specify the language of each diary entry. So new entry page has an option or rather a dropdown menu from where we select the language of the entry. This preference, by default takes the value of user’s current locale and is saved in language column of diary_entries table. The screen-shot of ‘new diary entry’ is as follows,
Image #2: openstreetmap-new-diary-entry
Also put up your suggestions…

Language filtering of diary entries!!

makghosh — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 22:06:57 +0200

Language filtering of diary entries!!

makghosh — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 21:49:57 +0200

This feature was originally proposed by Dan Karran as a comment in one of my earlier posts. Anyway, so here we have “show all / filter by my language” tags in the user diaries’ pages. By default, all entries are shown. We can click on ‘filter by my language’ so as filter the posts by the locale selected by the user in his prefernces. We can also have feeds for these filtered entries. The screen-shot of current diary entries page,
Image #1: openstreetmap-language-filter-diary-entries
And for this we need to specify the language of each diary entry. So new entry page has an option or rather a dropdown menu from where we select the language of the entry. This preference, by default takes the value of user’s current locale and is saved in language column of diary_entries table. The screen-shot of new entry is as follows,
Image #2: openstreetmap-new-diary-entry
Also put up your suggestions…

Language filtering of diary entries!!

makghosh — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 21:49:57 +0200

This feature was originally proposed by Dan Karran as a comment in one of my earlier posts. Anyway, so here we have “show all / filter by my language” tags in the user diaries’ pages. By default, all entries are shown. We can click on ‘filter by my language’ so as filter the posts by the locale selected by the user in his prefernces. We can also have feeds for these filtered entries. The screen-shot of current diary entries page,
Image #1: openstreetmap-language-filter-diary-entries
And for this we need to specify the language of each diary entry. So new entry page has an option or rather a dropdown menu from where we select the language of the entry. This preference, by default takes the value of user’s current locale and is saved in language column of diary_entries table. The screen-shot of ‘new diary entry’ is as follows,
Image #2: openstreetmap-new-diary-entry
Also put up your suggestions…

Localization Statistics

makghosh — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 21:48:18 +0200

After translation updates, I did the l10n statistics. This basically give the translators an idea of number of pending/completed strings and percentage of localization done for all locales currently supported by the app. For this i created a Statistics table in database using migration. Now the statistics are updated when user clicks on the l10n link on his/her home page. The logic (in TranslateController#stats) is if the current language of the user is not present in the statistics table, it is added. Otherwise normally the values are updated with the help of globalize_translations table. The screen-shot of the l10n statistics,
Image #1: openstreetmap-l10n-statistics
Its’ this statistics that apears first when the translator clicks on l10n link in his/her home page. Another nifty feature is that, s/he can view the sort the l10n statistics in two ways, ‘by percentage’ or ‘by number of completed strings’ in descending order. Also, every locale has a link to the pending/completed strings page associated with the numbers.
Apart from this, i have kept this l10n statistics page (without those pending/completed strings link) visible to all users, just to motivate more of them into translation. The screenshot of user’s home page with l10n link (view rendered in bn-IN locale as you can see one string i translated for example),
Image #2: openstreetmap-user-home-bengali-partial
The difference between user/translator is done by tr_status column in user table,
0 = User
1 = Translator
2 = l10n Admin (proposed)
Todo: For now, the tr_status is updated manually. We have thought about a admin page for the l10n admin where s/he can add/remove translators, add/remove coordinators etc. Thoughts??
Please put up your comments or suggestions…

Localization Statistics

makghosh — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 21:48:18 +0200

After translation updates, I did the l10n statistics. This basically give the translators an idea of number of pending/completed strings and percentage of localization done for all locales currently supported by the app. For this i created a Statistics table in database using migration. Now the statistics are updated when user clicks on the l10n link on his/her home page. The logic (in TranslateController#stats) is if the current language of the user is not present in the statistics table, it is added. Otherwise normally the values are updated with the help of globalize_translations table. The screen-shot of the l10n statistics,
Image #1: openstreetmap-l10n-statistics
Its’ the ‘l10n statistics’ that apears first when the translator clicks on l10n link in his/her home page. Another nifty feature is that, s/he can view the sort the l10n statistics in two ways, ‘by percentage’ or ‘by number of completed strings’ in descending order. Also, every locale has a link to the pending/completed strings page associated with the numbers.
Apart from this, i have kept this l10n statistics page (without those pending/completed strings link) visible to all users, just to motivate more of them into translation. The screenshot of user’s home page with l10n link (view rendered in bn-IN locale as you can see one string i translated for example),
Image #2: openstreetmap-user-home-bengali-partial
The difference between user/translator is done by tr_status column in user table,
0 = User
1 = Translator
2 = l10n Admin (proposed)
Todo: For now, the tr_status is updated manually. We have thought about a admin page for the l10n admin where s/he can add/remove translators, add/remove coordinators etc. Thoughts??
Please put up your comments or suggestions…

Translation updates via RSS

makghosh — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 21:47:16 +0200

Its’ been a while since i last posted an update. So now, I need to open-discuss all my exploits for last 2-3 weeks. I owe lot of thanks to my mentor Mikel Maron for helping me out in testing different features, pointing out some important bugs, suggesting new features and how to code/implement them. Now, coming straight to the point, with help of globalize plugin in osm rails-port, we now have translation feeds. I mean now translators can now have rss feeds for their default language (say spanish (es-ES)), both for pending and completed strings. These are the strings generated or rather added in the globalize_translations table while different views are rendered in that locale.
We have the entire list of pending or completed strings for a particular locale (which is actually the language chosen in user settings page) paginated in groups of ten, which is in turn available as updates by rss feeds. We can simply move to “older strings / newer strings” accordingly. For doing these i needed to add translate_controller.rb, corresponding views and also updated the routes.rb as required. The screen-shot of the “l10n home” that we have in osm rails-port now,
Image #1: openstreetmap-l10n-home-pending-strings-with-rss
Also, each string has a link that opens up the translation interface where we can view the string and add/update the translation for that particular string. For this purpose, I have used a form, where we can type-in the translation for the string in the translators’ locale. When we add/update translation for a string, its’ updated in the database and if everything works fine, we are confirmed by a flash notice “Translation was updated successfully”. The next time we open the corresponding view, we find the string translated. Here’s the screenshot of the translation interface,
Image #2: openstreetmap-translation-interface
There are some languages which are common to multiple countries. So i had to update the views so that locale without any country tag can be added. I mean earlier, Spanish(es-ES) & German(de-DE) etc got to have the country tag. But now languages like Arabic(ar) common to multiple countries can also be added.
Todo: Now this web-based translation is actually meant to be handled by the ajax in-place-editor of click-to-globalize. Because it places the translatable strings in context, as an advantage. But the problems with CtG are partially fixed. More on this at a later post. So we need the in-place editor start working. Although, the existing translation interface will stay on, so that translators can update translation of any string on the go, if needed just by checking the feeds. They don’t have to search for the concerned view! Thoughts??