Setup crowdin for translations

[QuentiumYT]

Description

Hello, I'd like to contribute for french translations but handling .ts files directly is quite boring ^^ I've use Crowdin for a Qt project I'm maintaining. (https://crowdin.com/project/stacer)
It's a simple setup (may take some time to fit every need) but works really well (and it's free)! If you would like some help, we can stay in touch.

Describe the solution you'd like

My translation update process is:

1. Someone propose strings in Crowdin
2. I can review translations (before a commit is made) or not (I prefer not because it's quicker)
3. It creates 1 commit per translation file (in a period span of 1h I think) on a separate main_i10n branch
4. It creates also a new PR where I run a simple lupdate (for formatting style or update lines of the project)
5. I keep Crowdin PR open while there isn't much translations or merge it before a new release
6. Easy squash merge at the end :)

Describe alternatives you've considered

Manual is very random / not complete / no review
Some other translation platforms I don't know about (self hosted exists)

[skironDotNet]

Can't we just pull them from the original n++?

[QuentiumYT]

Maybe that can work if the strings are the same, I am not sure if they are the same format. Also people translate them manually here as I can see

[dail8859]

Can't we just pull them from the original n++?

Not without a great deal of manual effort unfortunately.

@QuentiumYT Appreciate the suggestion. I don't ever deal with translating things myself so I'm open to ideas and glad to hear you've had success with it. I spent a few minutes getting logged in and seeing how to set it up. Also took a look at your stacer project as well. Seems to make sense but will try to find some more time soon to test out the integration more and will let you know if I have any questions on how you set yours up.

[QuentiumYT]

Glad to hear that :) I know it can take some time to set up but people can translate it more easily. Don't hesitate to ping me if you have any questions!

[pozemka]

I find that quite a lot of opensource projects are using Weblate. They have free plan for open source project. https://hosted.weblate.org/
I am personally contributed to project with both Crowdin and Weblate and find latter more friendly. But it is just personal subjective preference.

[skironDotNet]

I code in C# not C++ so can't help much (unless used AI to refactor it), but if I had C++ I would work on this project full time, because I'm on Linux and would love to have native n++. Currently running Notepad++ via Wine and it works but loads slowly. Sorry this was off top.

As for translations, the sooner some translation framework will be setup in the code, the less effort it will take to introduce it. I hope someone will help.
Thank you all!

[dail8859]

@QuentiumYT I've spent a few hours fumbling around Crowdin and can't seem to get it to pull translations from this repository.

I've got GitHub integrated

When I go to configure a branch and create a new "bundle" I end up stuck on this screen and nothing seems obvious after that.

Thoughts?

[dail8859]

Quite a bit more fumbling around and finally got something imported. Not perfect but its definitely something!

[QuentiumYT]

Ah very nice, yes a base translation is required and it's not straightforward.
By the way, you can only select the existing languages or add the 30 most common languages from crowdin. If an existing language does not inport in crowdin, it's somethimes the lang ISO code that is not correct

[dail8859]

Seems like I've got everything working with the existing translations...except Chinese Traditional...which should be zh-TW but it isn't recognizing the file from this repository oddly enough.

[QuentiumYT]

Ah I see, my chinese language files are stacer_zh-tw.ts and stacer_zh-cn.ts and I mapped them in the project settings

[dail8859]

@QuentiumYT Great suggestion! I think that's exactly what I need to do. I edited the Chinese Traditional and it created a pull request with just NotepadNext_zh.ts so setting custom language mapping is probably the best way to handle that.

[dail8859]

Hi @QuentiumYT Had a question about the overall process.

I understand that crowdin will create a pull request of changes in the l10n_master branch and as users update translations in crowdin it will just keep committing to that branch and I can merge those changes whenever I'm ready.

How do new translations from the master branch show up in crowdin for users to translate? If the source translation file (/i18n/NotepadNext_en.ts) is updated in the master branch does crowdin know that? Does the source translation only update after a merge of l10n_master? Or do I manually need to go into crowdin and sync the source translation file?

[QuentiumYT]

Hey, crowdin will automatically update it's sources translations when your en.ts file is updated. At least if you set it up with the GitHub integration. I think you can define the refresh time but it's 1h by default if I remember correctly.