[Xerte] Re: Language

[Julian Tenney]

I was thinking earlier - it is simple enough to make the tempaltes multi lingual with lanaguages we store in the back end, but changing them to handle the author adding different languages is another thing entirely: how would the wizard work? There's a lot more work if the author can create multi language quizzes themselves.

So the wizard needs some sort of language selctor, so that the wizard writes to the right language nodes in the xml. That would entail major archtectural changes, as the nodes are instantiated with a  lot of the text nodes / attributes in them: the wizard then edits them. Need to think about that more.

I think the priorities are 

i) the toolkits application itself. So it can be installed and configured to a  locale.
i) equal first, but maybe later, are the templates  as we discussed, for end users ( with a long term goal of multi language support for authors who want to author in more than one language. That has interseting connotations for oer, where an author may not be the first author, but can easily translate the content).
i) any engine changes to support those things ( i.e. a language neutral interface, with configurable language elements for things where text is required (i.e. the items on the accessibility menus).

I put my hand up for the third task, loading text from language xml files for the xerte default interface, and managing all that into the runtime. I'm putting Pats hand up for leading on the first task, I'm thinking Jonathan can do the second one, and Tom can write a plan and keeep us all in line. Other roles to be defined...

Alistair and I had some thoughts about a developer nonference here at Nottingham sometime, maybe late September: that could be a useful event, which we are hoping might prove a catalyst in developing the open source commnity around the Xerte Project. This would be topical. At the very least we can provide a venue for a couple of days.

If enough hands go up, we can start the ball rolling?

Do we want a 'Xerte Developers' list?
________________________________________
From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Tom Reijnders [reijnders at tor.nl]
Sent: 09 May 2011 19:56
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Language

Regarding Google translate.

My experience is, that it's really a usefull tool to use to understand a
bit of foreign text like Norwegian but it is not good enough foor these
kinds of things.

I like your proposal. And yes, it will be quite some work to create a
multi-language quiz for example, but is neat and tidy and a lot simpler
than having seperate Learbing objects flying around (one for each language).



Op 9-5-2011 15:06, Julian Tenney schreef:
> The way to do it would be
>
> - have the interface set a language in a variable, say, currentLanguage, which defaults to English
> - Have a language drop down somewhere for user selection to set the variable
> - Have that get the list of supported languages from the xwd file
> - use that variable to fish out the relevant language i.e. learningObject.languages[currentLanguage].greeting
> - include the language info in the xml o as to be fishable for each apge tye? Or globally? I think I'd probzbly do it for each page type, then it will be in the data along with learningObject.gapFill[0].languages[0][currentLanguage].greeting
>
> <gapFill blah...>
>       <languages>
>               <English>
>                       <greeting>Hello World
>
> etc
>
>
> Or something like that. You could play around by just setting a 'currentLanguage' variable and using that to get data out of the xml.
>
> Did you want to explore using google translate instead and automate the whole thing? That would be an interesting experiment, but I don't think it would always give an acceptable translation.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Tom Reijnders
> Sent: 08 May 2011 21:17
> To: Xerte discussion list
> Subject: [Xerte] Re: Language
>
> Agreed...., that's why I am very interested in the suggestions discussed
> by Jonathan and Julian.
>
> I also would like to have multi language support in the mainstream
> Xerte. Otherwise, it can/will become a maintenance nightmare....
>
> Tom
>
> Op 8-5-2011 21:23, Pat Lockley schreef:
>
>> On 08/05/2011 20:17, Inge Donkervoort wrote:
>>
>>> I've made a Dutch translation of the page-template of the stand alone
>>> version of Xerte. With a bit of effort you can use this in XOT. I'm
>>> working on a translation of the media-template as well.
>>>
>>> Please note that this translation will enable you to create Dutch
>>> learning objects. The wizard is still in English.
>>>
>>> Let me know if you are interested.
>>>
>>> Inge Donkervoort
>>>
>> My only worry about Internationalisation is the effect on Notts as the
>> main developers?
>>
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--
--

Tom Reijnders
TOR Informatica
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