Maniphest T91971

Find alternative solution for translating the app description other than using a single large message in our translation files
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Description

The message that holds the Android app description for the Play market is very long, so the translators in translatewiki cannot see it and translate it comfortably. It would be very nice to split it to many messages (and then stick them together when posting to the app store).

Auto-converting the current translations would be nice, too.

Alternatively, the description can be moved out of the Android app's codd to a wiki page in mediawiki.org that would be translated using the Translate extension.

Details

	Subject	Repo	Branch	Lines +/-
	Hygiene: remove dead code and resources	apps/android/wikipedia	master	+19 -2 K

Customize query in gerrit

Related Objects

Mentioned In: rAPAW6996a9569f8e: Add exceptions to TranslationTests

Event Timeline

Amire80 created this task.Mar 9 2015, 2:19 PM

Amire80 raised the priority of this task from to Needs Triage.

Amire80 updated the task description. (Show Details)

Amire80 added projects: Wikipedia-Android-App-Backlog, I18n.

Amire80 added subscribers: Amire80, Nikerabbit, • Deskana and 2 others.

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptMar 9 2015, 2:19 PM

• Deskana moved this task from Needs Triage to Bug Backlog on the Wikipedia-Android-App-Backlog board.Mar 9 2015, 9:04 PM

• Deskana moved this task from Bug Backlog to Tech Debt Backlog on the Wikipedia-Android-App-Backlog board.

I'm going to have to mark this one as declined. Although I am very receptive to your concerns, it's going to be a lot of work for us to disassemble and reassemble the description over and over again for each language from a series of separate messages. So that isn't workable, practically speaking.

I think doing it on mediawiki.org instead would be workable, but it's a bit clunky to put it on a wiki for translation. Are there any other options?

• Deskana renamed this task from the Android app description is too long to be translated comfortably in translatewiki to Find alternative solution for translating the Android app description other than using a single large message in our translation files.Mar 9 2015, 9:21 PM

• Deskana reopened this task as Open.

• Deskana triaged this task as Lowest priority.

• Deskana set Security to None.

I agree that it would be good to remove this info from the regular strings.xml file since this is a long string we don't need to have in the apk, but it unnecessarily increases the apk size.

I see two options currently:

Use mediawiki to handle translations. I would like to know more about how the process would work and look like. Are there

We could split this string from strings.xml into a new file in a completely different folder within our repo so it doesn't get bundled when we build the apk. The iOS app already has multiple files to be translated, so that should be easy to do. There it could be split into multiple blocks to make it easier for translators if needed.

For how to use page translation, please see https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:Translate/Page_translation_example. If done carefully, you can just copy paste the whole text from the pages.

Separate file is okay as well, but it alone wont solve the issue of having too much text in one unit.

I like the mediawiki approach. It seems easy enough. I just would like to know if this is already and still working.

Specifically, we do already have the "T" tags in https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile/Release_history#Android
But when I go to https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile/Release_history/de#Android the text still shows up in English. Only a few section headlines on this page are translated
Are mediawiki pages not translated anymore? Where could I see the message group statistic for that?

You can see summary at the top of the page. More detailed stats you can get if you first click "translate" and then "message group stats" in the Vector tabs.

mw.org and meta have many pages to translate, way more than translators have time for. It is important to draw translators attention to important things for example with Special:NotifyTranslators (page translation admin access) or the translators-l mailing list.

• Deskana moved this task from Tech Debt Backlog to Open Questions/Discussions on the Wikipedia-Android-App-Backlog board.Mar 30 2015, 2:32 AM

• Deskana renamed this task from Find alternative solution for translating the Android app description other than using a single large message in our translation files to Find alternative solution for translating the app description other than using a single large message in our translation files.Apr 20 2015, 9:55 PM

• Deskana added a project: Wikipedia-iOS-App-Backlog.

• Deskana moved this task from Needs Triage to Tracking on the Wikipedia-iOS-App-Backlog board.

• Deskana merged a task: T71330: Put iOS store descriptions into localization files for TranslateWiki.

• Deskana moved this task from Tracking to Open Questions/Discussions on the Wikipedia-iOS-App-Backlog board.

• Deskana added subscribers: • brion, • KLans_WMF, Unknown Object (MLST).

• Tbayer subscribed.May 21 2015, 11:33 PM

Unassigning, since I don't do app stuff any more. :-)

• Fjalapeno moved this task from Open Questions/Discussions to Needs Triage on the Wikipedia-iOS-App-Backlog board.Jul 5 2015, 6:47 PM

• Niedzielski mentioned this in rAPAW6996a9569f8e: Add exceptions to TranslationTests.Sep 2 2015, 10:12 PM

MBinder_WMF added a project: Essential-Work.Sep 9 2015, 7:32 PM

MBinder_WMF removed a project: Essential-Work.Sep 9 2015, 7:43 PM

• JMinor moved this task from Needs Triage to Product Backlog on the Wikipedia-iOS-App-Backlog board.Jan 25 2016, 10:43 PM

Change 288039 had a related patch set uploaded (by Niedzielski):
Hygiene: remove dead code and resources

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/288039

gerritbot added a project: Patch-For-Review.May 10 2016, 7:54 PM

I've set up a Mediawiki page with the store description, and marked it for translation:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/Wikipedia_Android_app_store_description

This may be a bit clunky, as others have mentioned, but it seems to be the proper way.

Dbrant closed this task as Resolved.May 11 2016, 3:30 PM

Dbrant claimed this task.

Sounds right! Thank you!

• bearND added a project: Mobile-App-Android-Sprint-81-Thallium.May 11 2016, 5:20 PM

• bearND moved this task from To Do to Done on the Mobile-App-Android-Sprint-81-Thallium board.May 11 2016, 5:24 PM

Raymond unsubscribed.May 11 2016, 5:29 PM

Change 288039 merged by jenkins-bot:
Hygiene: remove dead code and resources