Pootle to Pontoon migration: Catalan (ca) experience

[Jordi Serratosa]

Hi all,

As it seems that there is no turning back on the Pootle decommission
decision, for Catalan (ca) we decided to move all projects to Pontoon
altogether in order to avoid even more confusion about where which
project is or when which project will be moved.

As indicated by l10n-drivers, we made sure there were no pending
suggestions in Pootle, since they are lost.

All projects seem to have moved successfully.

For our "wish list" for Pontoon, our priority was not to take a step
back from features we already had and that are important for us. So the
following are some issues that other locales might want to know or be
prepared to deal with:

*1) Ability to download projects in bilingual format for further reusal:*
We are involved in other projects apart from Mozilla's, so I think it's
easy to understand that we want to be able to reuse the translations
that we have volunteered with our time. Additionally, we also run
offline QA checks on the files, which rely on having a source and a
target. We are not the only locale for whom this is essential: Other
locales have also been stressing this need in the l10n list, in
hackatons and even in the last localization conference call
(https://air.mozilla.org/localization-conference-20170727/).
Initially there was a bug requesting ability to download as gettext
format (.po): https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1228718
which then developed to the [already implemented] ability to download as
.TMX files (the l10n industry-standard format for translation memories):
"Add ability to download translation memory"
(https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1333850)
This feature still has some caveats:
a) If I translate a string, save it, I realized I made a typo, I go back
to it, I correct it, save it. In the downloaded TMX, there will be 2
instances of that string: the string with a typo and the correct one
(!!!). Apparently, the way to deal with it is manually deleting the
string with a typo. This is very tedious and it is supposed to change
with this: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1288956
In short, to get a clean TMX memory we had to go through each project in
Pontoon, select the "Has suggestions" filter and manually deleting the
strings that had suggestions. I hope this behavior changes in short,
because it's a waste of time.
b) FTL format does not play nice with TMX: If the file is in the new FTL
format (as far as I know, all product projects will move to this format
in short), the downloaded TMX will include comments inside the source
string, and event whole constructs ans string ID, for example:

> <tu tuid="test-pilot-firefox-send:send.ftl:downloadAltText"
> srclang="en-US">
> <tuv xml:lang="en-US">
> <seg>*// Alternative text used on the download
> link/button (indicates an action).**
> **downloadAltText**
> ** .alt = *Download
> </seg>
> </tuv>
> <tuv xml:lang="ca">
> <seg>*downloadAltText**
> ** .alt = *Baixa
> </seg>
> </tuv>
> </tu>

Apparently, this will be resolved as part of
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1382686.

*2) Pontoon is missing global search across projects:*
Pootle has a global search across all projects which is very useful for
global terminology changes. In Pontoon, right now we have to load
project by project to repeat the same search in each one. The bug for
this feature is https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1305281

*3) Comments on translated strings (be prepared to lose them!):*
If you used to add comments to some of your strings in Pootle, note that
when moving to Pontoon they will be lost (something that I was not made
aware beforehand!). Pontoon simply does not have a way to add comments
for fellow translators. I used this feature to indicate to other
translators/reviewers why that particular string was translated in a
different way than usual (for example due to space restrictions), or a
particular use of terminology, so they do not feel "tempted" to correct
it. If you also feel the need for this feature, this i s the associated
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1203265

*4) Character were imported as "\u..." (instead of the actual character):*
I just realized this. So @Matjaz, consider this a bug report ;-)
For project Firefox for Android (it seems to be the only project
affected), I just realized that apostrophe character (') was imported as
\u0027 in Pontoon:
https://pontoon.mozilla.org/ca/firefox-for-android/all-resources/?search=\u0027
There are hundreds of hits. I could go thought them and correct them,
but currently I would have to correct the string, return to the string
to manually delete the wrong suggestion (so it is not included int thye
TMX, as I describe in 1b above), and repeat hundreds of times. For
obvious reasons, I'd like to avoid that.
@l10n-drivers: Would it be possible to somehow fix this (replace \u0027
with ' ) on our end?


So this is our feedback as far as Pootle --> Pontoon is concerned. Note
that I did not mention anything about the usability of Pontoon
interface, which has already been discussed in this list.

salut,
jordi s

[Axel Hecht]

Thanks for the buglist.

Am 12.08.17 um 18:06 schrieb Jordi Serratosa:

>
> *4) Character were imported as "\u..." (instead of the actual character):*
> I just realized this. So @Matjaz, consider this a bug report ;-)
> For project Firefox for Android (it seems to be the only project
> affected), I just realized that apostrophe character (') was imported as
> \u0027 in Pontoon:
> https://pontoon.mozilla.org/ca/firefox-for-android/all-resources/?search=\u0027
>
> There are hundreds of hits. I could go thought them and correct them,
> but currently I would have to correct the string, return to the string
> to manually delete the wrong suggestion (so it is not included int thye
> TMX, as I describe in 1b above), and repeat hundreds of times. For
> obvious reasons, I'd like to avoid that.
> @l10n-drivers: Would it be possible to somehow fix this (replace \u0027
> with ' ) on our end?

... which I completed with
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1390111.

That was a difference in the serializer on the pootle and pontoon side.

Filed a bug to adjust the pontoon deserializer to take both encoding forms.

As for the existing strings, I'll leave that to matjaz to figure out if
we can do a mass-substitution. Tracking in
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1390113, also probably for
other localizations.

Axel

[Axel Hecht]

Am 14.08.17 um 14:13 schrieb Axel Hecht:

Matjaz just fixed both of these. The data bug was also fixed across all
affected localizations, not just Catalan.

Happy androiding

Axel