language recognition in webanywhere

[opentechgirl]

Hello:

I was recently introduced to your website and have begun to promote
with our library customers through out North America.

I also work with users around the globe, and I wondered if there were
some translation files already developed? In particular I was
interested in Spanish or Arabic. if not, I do have some keen open
source developers who would be happy to assist.

This is also of interest with our aging population, who at times, have
problems reading through the screens

[Jeff Bigham]

This sounds great.

We've done some work to get WebAnywhere working in other languages,
but the main bottleneck has been developer time.

The potential is certainly there. For instance, one developer made a
prototype of the system working in Cantonese.

If you know of open source developers who would like to help tackle
these problems, please put them in touch with me.

We'd love to get it working with multiple languages so more people
could benefit.

Thanks!
Jeff

[Cameron Wong]

Are you talking about the locale?

Here is a topic about this, but there is no agreement on the locale
solution. So it is pending.
http://code.google.com/p/webanywhere/issues/detail?id=26

I would like to put it back on the disscussion desk and I will
implement it when we get agreement on the solution.

Also, I know some about eSpeak. I think any new language support of
WebAnywhere can start with eSpeak. I am willing to provide help for
multiple languages support.

Cameron

> > problems reading through the screens- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[jbi...@cs.washington.edu]

Hi Cameron,

We agree that your last proposal is a good one.

What else do you need to start working on this?

Thanks,
Jeff

On Aug 8, 12:21 pm, Cameron Wong <hgn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Are you talking about the locale?
>
> Here is a topic about this, but there is no agreement on the locale

> solution. So it is pending.http://code.google.com/p/webanywhere/issues/detail?id=26

[Wong Cameron]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for your reply.

Nothing else. Just waiting for the agreement. I am busy recently and will start to implement it later.

I am wondering whether after I finish coding someone can help to verify the solution before I merge the locale branch to main stream. There is medium risk that existing functions will be broken since the locale solution will touch many files. If no one has time to verify, I will merge it directly. Thanks!

Cameron

2009/9/21 <jbi...@cs.washington.edu>

[wendy chisholm (crown hill 3-5s)]

Cameron,

Please feel free to merge your code into the main trunk.

Is there anything else you are waiting for or anything else we can
clarify?

--wendy

On Sep 22, 1:23 am, Wong Cameron <hgn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Jeff,
>
> Thanks for your reply.
>
> Nothing else. Just waiting for the agreement. I am busy recently and will
> start to implement it later.
> I am wondering whether after I finish coding someone can help to verify the
> solution before I merge the locale branch to main stream. There is medium
> risk that existing functions will be broken since the locale solution will
> touch many files. If no one has time to verify, I will merge it directly.
> Thanks!
>
> Cameron
>

> 2009/9/21 <jbig...@cs.washington.edu>

[Wong Cameron]

I've submit the locale implementation to trunk. But it's just a framework. We need to wrap text in PHP/JS with wa_gettext(), which should be easy to do it. I found there is new submission in the trunk recently and the latest WA works not so well now. I think we need to fix the bugs first.

I have one suggestion. We can deploy an eSpeak TTS server and add a locale/language selection in the demo page to let users change locale/language. This should make WA more widely used.

By the way, is browser.php still in used? It seems that it has been merged in index.php. If browser.php is no longer used, we'd better delete it in case of confusion.

Updated file list:
Sending        trunk/config.php
Sending        trunk/index.php
Adding         trunk/locale
Adding         trunk/locale/README
Adding         trunk/locale/zh_CN
Adding         trunk/locale/zh_CN/LC_MESSAGES
Adding         trunk/locale/zh_CN/LC_MESSAGES/WebAnywhere.js
Adding         trunk/locale/zh_CN/LC_MESSAGES/WebAnywhere.php
Adding         trunk/locale/zh_CN/LC_MESSAGES/WebAnywhere.po
Adding         trunk/locale/zh_TW
Adding         trunk/locale/zh_TW/LC_MESSAGES
Adding         trunk/locale/zh_TW/LC_MESSAGES/WebAnywhere.js
Adding         trunk/locale/zh_TW/LC_MESSAGES/WebAnywhere.php
Adding         trunk/locale/zh_TW/LC_MESSAGES/WebAnywhere.po
Adding         trunk/locale.php
Adding         trunk/update_locale.pl


===== from locale/README =====

Procedures to add new locale:
1. Find the proper symbol for your locale. "de" is for German for example. We may have more than one locale in a language. For example, we use zh_CN for simplified Chinese.
2. Change working directory to root of WA source code.
3. Add new directories. Take German for example: `mkdir -p locale/de/LC_MESSAGES`
4. Create an empty locale file. `touch locale/de/LC_MESSAGES/WebAnywhere.po`
5. Update locale template with `perl update_locale.pl`. Texts need to translate will be added to locale/de/LC_MESSAGES/WebAnywhere.po
6. Edit locale/de/LC_MESSAGES/WebAnywhere.po to translate the texts.
7. Run `perl update_locale.pl` to update *.php and *.js under locale directory.
8. Change the locale you want to use in config.php. Add one line like this:
   $fixed_locale = 'de';

Procedures to update existing locale:
1. Wrap new string in PHP/JS files with wa_gettext('new text')
2. Change working directory to root of WA source code and run `perl update_locale.pl`. All files under locale directory will be updated. A new entry for 'new text' will be added to *.po files.
3. Edit *.po files to translate 'new text'.
4. Redo step 2. *.php and *.js files will be updated according to updated *.po files.

Cameron

2009/10/1 wendy chisholm (crown hill 3-5s) <chishol...@gmail.com>

[Wendy Chisholm]

Cameron,

Thank you! I've checked out your code and am testing it against the
list of test pages and in the browsers listed at:
http://code.google.com/p/webanywhere/wiki/Planning?ts=1255388594&updated=Planning

When you say, "the latest WA works not so well now"--can you tell me
more about the bugs you have found?

I'm not sure if browser.php is still in use. Jeffrey--can you clarify?

Thank you,
--wendy

--
Wendy Chisholm
Web Accessibility Specialist
http://sp1ral.com/about/
http://staff.washington.edu/chiswa/
twitter: wendyabc

[Cameron Wong]

Wendy,

Thanks for your reply! I've submit a few updates today.

If $fixed_local is not specified in config.php, we can chage locale at
runtime with something like "http://<WA-host>/index.php?locale=zh_CN

When I open latest WA with IE7 and Chrome 3, I can't input text if I
focus the location area with mouse while it works if I focus with
CTRL+L. This phenomenon does not exist on Firefox 3.5.

I failed to run WA on Linux days ago. The index page just display
something then stop there. I doubt that it was a cache issue. I will
try again later.

Cameron

2009/10/13 Wendy Chisholm <chishol...@gmail.com>:

[Cameron Wong]

I've found the cause why I failed test on Linux. That's because I make
a symbol link to the directory of WA but minify module will have
problem with symbol link.

With Firefox 3.0 on Linux, I fail to input text if I focus the
location area with mouse.

Cameron

2009/10/14 Cameron Wong <hgn...@gmail.com>:

[Wendy Chisholm]

Cameron,

> Thanks for your reply! I've submit a few updates today.
>

Excellent. I've updated my local copy with your latest code. I have
not yet run the perl script or made any other changes, except to
update my local copy.

> If $fixed_local is not specified in config.php, we can chage locale at
> runtime with something like "http://<WA-host>/index.php?locale=zh_CN
>

Cool! That makes the go, previous, and next buttons display in Chinese. :)

As I said, I don't see your other changes because I wanted to hear
from you about the bugs you discovered before I started testing your
code.

> When I open latest WA with IE7 and Chrome 3, I can't input text if I
> focus the location area with mouse while it works if I focus with
> CTRL+L. This phenomenon does not exist on Firefox 3.5.
>

Ok. I'll check this out.

> I failed to run WA on Linux days ago. The index page just display
> something then stop there. I doubt that it was a cache issue. I will
> try again later.
>

I see your follow-up message that says this was the result of a symbolic link.

But, it looks like you have an issue with FF3 on Linux with the mouse
on the location area. If you use the mouse, to put focus on the
location area, what happens? Where does the focus go? Can you use
control+l (the keyboard shortcut) to put focus on the location area?

Thank you,
--wendy

[Cameron Wong]

Wendy,

> But, it looks like you have an issue with FF3 on Linux with the mouse
> on the location area.  If you use the mouse, to put focus on the
> location area, what happens? Where does the focus go? Can you use
> control+l (the keyboard shortcut) to put focus on the location area?

In my memory, the phenomenon with FF3 on Linux is same to that of IE7
and Chrome3 on Windows as follow:
1) Click the location area with mouse. The speaker will say "Location
field text area"
2) Input a character, the character doesn't display in the area. The
speaker will restart to say "Location field text area". Every key
stroke will make speaker restart to say that sentence.

Everything works right if I focus location area with CTRL+l

Cameron

[Jeffrey Bigham]

To fix this, I think there should be a mousedown event listener attached to the outer frame, which will call the same function called when CTRL+l is pressed.

WA.Interface.focusBrowserElement('location');

-Jeff

--
Jeffrey P. Bigham, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, University of Rochester, Computer Science
Visiting Scientist, MIT CSAIL
http://www.jeffreybigham.com

[Cameron Wong]

I've submit some new code just now.
I've wrapped all string with wa_gettext and finished translating
simplified Chinese (zh_CN)

After testing, we can start to translate other locales. But we'd
better deploy a eSpeak TTS server to test because Festival can only
read English.

Some amendments to my previous email. The phenomenon should be:

1) Click the location area with mouse. The speaker will say "Location
field text area"
2) Input a character, the character doesn't display in the area. The

speaker will say "Invalid key press".

Jeff's explanation sounds reasonable.

Cameron

2009/10/15 Jeffrey Bigham <jeffrey...@gmail.com>:

[Wendy Chisholm]

Thanks for the additional information. I'm working on WebAnywhere on
Mondays and Wednesdays. So, I'll get back to you early next week with
what I find.

--wendy

[Cameron Wong]

Hi Vrutti,

Sorry for my late response!

First, checkout the code from SVN:
http://code.google.com/p/webanywhere/source/checkout

Second, install it according to
http://code.google.com/p/webanywhere/wiki/Installation. eSpeak has a
Hindi voice. You can use it. You should encounter many problems in
this step. Write down the detail steps (what software you install and
what configuration you've made). When you can't fix it yourself, show
me the detail and I will help to fix it with you.

Third, do a Hindi translation.
http://code.google.com/p/webanywhere/source/browse/trunk/locale/README

Feel free to ask for help if you have problems with the steps.

Cameron

2010/9/29 Vrutti Vyas <vrutt...@yahoo.co.in>:
> Hi Cameron,
>
> We would like develop WebAnywhere for Hindi Language.
> Could you please provide us with some information or approach as to
> how we can start with this?

>
>
> On Aug 8 2009, 12:21 pm, Cameron Wong <hgn...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Are you talking about the locale?
>>
>> Here is a topic about this, but there is no agreement on the locale

>> solution. So it is pending.http://code.google.com/p/webanywhere/issues/detail?id=26

>>
>> I would like to put it back on the disscussion desk and I will
>> implement it when we get agreement on the solution.
>>

>> Also, I know some about eSpeak. I think any newlanguagesupport of