Why don't you use the LP translation facilities?

That is a good question. Sorry for not answering right away. Apparently LP doesn't send notifications for questions.

I have never used the LP translation functionality, neither has Marius (who is currently coordinating the translations)... Have you used it before? Could you get in touch with Marius to make it work with *.pot files instead of our currently used *.properties design?

Cheers,
Philipp

No problem.

I have used it before, but only on the "client"-side, i.e. translating stuff for a project. The interface is very convenient, providing small bits of things to be translated (kinda like an internet survey form), including suggestions, a mechanism to only suggest if unsure of the correctness of the translation, stats (i.e. 90% translated). Take a look e.g. here: https://translations.launchpad.net/openshot/trunk/+pots/openshot/de/+translate

The killer feature imo, especially if you already host your project on LP, is that you can utilize the whole existing infrastructure, and enabling people to _easily_ contribute some of their time, if they can't contribute with coding. It's entirely possible to just translate 2-3 phrases during a coffee break. I find that highly unlikely if you have to find some translations file, download, browse to where you stopped last time, do some translations, mail it to the dev - the entry barrier is just too high.

I'll do some research how to migrate from .properties, and will report back.

OK, so there's lots of info/guides here: https://help.launchpad.net/Translations

It seems that it's easily possible to convert from .properties (if that is Java syntax) to .po with the gettext utility itself using a --properties-input flag. http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/gettext.html
I just gave that a quick shot, and apart from the fact that there are two duplicate message definitions it went well, and looks reasonable (i.e. not garbled or something). Be aware that I don't have experience with that, all I have used so far is the LP translation forms, so I'm not sure I'd be a lot of help. :-P

I'll send Marius a quick message to point him to this question (seems you can't subscribe other people, as you can in bug reports).

Great. Thanks!

On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 3:21 PM, Christoph Buchner
<email address hidden> wrote:
> Question #160433 on Syncany changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/syncany/+question/160433
>
> Christoph Buchner gave more information on the question:
> No problem.
>
> I have used it before, but only on the "client"-side, i.e. translating
> stuff for a project. The interface is very convenient, providing small
> bits of things to be translated (kinda like an internet survey form),
> including suggestions, a mechanism to only suggest if unsure of the
> correctness of the translation, stats (i.e. 90% translated).  Take a
> look e.g. here:
> https://translations.launchpad.net/openshot/trunk/+pots/openshot/de/+translate
>
> The killer feature imo, especially if you already host your project on
> LP, is that you can utilize the whole existing infrastructure, and
> enabling people to _easily_ contribute some of their time, if they can't
> contribute with coding. It's entirely possible to just translate 2-3
> phrases during a coffee break. I find that highly unlikely if you have
> to find some translations file, download, browse to where you stopped
> last time, do some translations, mail it to the dev - the entry barrier
> is just too high.
>
> I'll do some research how to migrate from .properties, and will report
> back.
>
> --
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.
>

Thanks Philipp C. Heckel, that solved my question.