WebTranslateIt Blog

Update to the Stats API endpoint

edouardbriere — Fri, 11 May 2012 12:05:49 +0200

I just released an update to the Stats API endpoint.

This endpoint —which lets you gather statistics about a project— now takes optional parameters, such as:

file: the File ID you want to filter by,
date_range: The amount of time since the strings were added. Accepts a string such as 1.day.ago, 27.days.ago, 3.months.ago, 2.years.ago.
category: The category ID to filter by.
label: The label ID to filter by.
s: The search to filter by.

Using these new parameters, you can now access very detailed project stats.

I hope you will find this improvement useful. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.

Support for Apple .plist files

edouardbriere — Fri, 11 May 2012 11:58:58 +0200

WebTranslateIt now supports Apple Property List .plist files. These files are used for localizing Macintosh, iPhone and iPad applications.

I added these new file formats to the list of linguistic file formats supported by WebTranslateIt.

web_translate_it rubygem v2.0.0 released

edouardbriere — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 14:36:00 +0200

I just released a new version of the web_translate_it gem, the open-source synchronization tool for Web Translate It.

This version 2.0.0 is a major new version. It includes many improvements and bug fixes.

Improvements to the String, Translation, Term and TermTranslation libraries

The String, Translation, Term and TermTranslation libraries you can use to manipulate segments and TermBase terms from a ruby script have been rewritten. The new ruby API is much easier to use. Here’s an example showing how easy it is to use and what it can do.

https://gist.github.com/2367226

Other Improvements

wti add can now lets you know if there are no new files to be added. A bug happening with version of ruby < 1.9 was fixed.
wti addlocale now lets you create a master locale if none is setup on your project.
wti init is more helpful for beginners

Install or Upgrade

Important: This major upgrade contains breaking changes if you used the String and Translation ruby libraries or the Term and TermTranslation ruby libraries somewhere in your app. Changes are straightforward and should definitely improve the code. web_translate_it 2.0 doesn’t contain any other breaking changes.

To install web_translate_it, please refer to the gem documentation.

To upgrade web_translate_it to its latest version, type in a terminal: gem install web_translate_it.

New preference for segment sorting

edouardbriere — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 11:43:00 +0200

Segment sorting in linguistic files is a matter of taste. I rather have them sorted alphabetically, so I can quickly find a segment when adding copy for a feature (I add new segments in my text editor, test the copy locally and then push them to WebTranslateIt).

Others prefer to have their linguistic files left in the same order they uploaded their original master file. The reason is that changing the segment’s order creates massive changes in a SCM.

So, a new preference is now available in your project settings. This setting lets you choose whether or not you want WebTranslateIt to sort your segments by alphabetical order.

Changing this setting recompiles all your linguistic files, so it can take up to a few before your files are sorted the way you want.

Flag strings as obsolete or to verify

edouardbriere — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 10:35:59 +0200

One very useful feature in WebTranslateIt is that updating the source text of a segment automatically flag its related translations as to verify.

I find this feature really useful, because if you slightly change the sense of a phrase, chances are that the translations need to reviewed by a translator to be slightly changed or completely reworked.

Another useful feature is that uploading a new version of a file which removed some segments flag the missing segments as obsolete. This is equivalent of moving segments to the trash, although these translations are still available for the translation memory.

Until now, it wasn’t possible to manually flag a translation as to verify or manually flag a segment as obsolete. These statuses were automatically set by the system.

It is now possible to do so from the web interface.

When you click on the options button (the cog next to each segment), two new options are available: Obsolete segment and Flag translation as to verify.

Do you have a string you plan to remove? Flag it as obsolete. Is a translation too long or seem to have a typo? Flag it as to verify and leave a comment to let your translators check it again.

I hope you will find this feature useful. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.

web_translate_it rubygem v1.10.1 released

edouardbriere — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 14:23:44 +0200

I just released a new version of the web_translate_it gem, the open-source synchronization tool for Web Translate It.

This version 1.10.1 introduces a few bug fixes and improvements.

Improvements

wti now prevents existing master files from being added again with wti add. This allows to run a command like: ls *.xml | grep -v "\.en" | xargs wti add without worrying about adding files a second time.
The wti command now has its own wti process name.

Bug fixes

Prevents wti status from crashing.
Better error messages.

Install or Upgrade

To install web_translate_it, please refer to the gem documentation.

To upgrade web_translate_it to its latest version, type in a terminal: gem install web_translate_it.

Improvements to the search results

edouardbriere — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 17:51:00 +0200

I just released a huge improvement to the search results in WebTranslateIt’s translation interface.

Search results now display detailed stats, including the number of strings and words per status (proofread, unproofread, untranslated, to verify, …).

You can also filter search results by status, date, file, category and labels, so you can search for segments containing “user” that belong to a specific file and category for instance.

And finally, you can now run batch operations on filtered search results.

I hope you will find these improvements useful. Thank you for choosing WebTranslateIt.

New in WebTranslateIt: Multiple master languages

edouardbriere — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 16:34:13 +0100

I just added the ability to setup more than one master language in WebTranslateIt.

Under the Language & Stats tab, when you edit a locale you will find a new option that lets you flag a language as “Important”.

It does exactly what it says on the tin: editing a segment’s translation in an important language flags the segment’s translations in other languages as “to verify”.

I hope your will find this feature useful. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.

Introducing Discussions: stacked conversations with smart notifications

edouardbriere — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 11:13:00 +0100

I released today a major update to WebTranslateIt’s commenting system.

Introducing Discussions

Discussions is a major improvement to the commenting system released about 3 years ago. Discussions are stacked conversations with smart notifications.

Stacked Conversations

Conversations are now stacked. It’s easier to read and understand. Next to each person’s name, the user’s role is also displayed, so you know exactly what the person is talking about.

Smart Notifications

You can choose exactly who will be notified about your comment. Select each team member individually, or select a whole team. Click on “everyone” to select everyone at once, or on a team name to select everyone in the team.

If you’re not interested in a discussion you were notified about, you can disable notifications for that discussion. The opposite is also possible: You can add yourself to the list of recipients if you’d like to follow a topic.

Comment in your language

Many translators post comments regarding the translation of a segment in a specific language. I improved and made this feature clearer by separating general discussions on a segment from discussions on a translation.

Better Discussions Dashboard

The discussion Dashboard was also updated.

It’s clearer, loads faster and an indicator clearly shows the status of the discussions (read, unread, notified, …).

I hope you will find this update useful. I have been working on this update since more than 6 months. I’m really stoked to finally be releasing it. Thank you for choosing WebTranslateIt.

New in WebTranslateIt: Flag a bunch of changes as minor

edouardbriere — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 10:20:00 +0100

You probably know that updating the source text of a segment automatically flags its related translations as “to verify”.

This is a great feature, because if you slightly change the sense of a phrase, chances are that the translations need to be slightly changed and reviewed by a translator, too.

But if you’re only fixing a typo or making a minor change you probably don’t want the related translations to be reviewed.

On the web interface, you can simply flag a single change as “minor change” when editing the source text from the web interface, but until today it wasn’t possible to do so with a batch of strings pushed via the API.

I just released an update to WebTranslateIt’s File API, Translation API, the File Manager and wti, the open-source synchronization tool.

File API

On the File API, the Update File endpoint gets a new optional parameter: minor_changes.

Setting minor_changes to true flags the string changes as minor changes, and target translations won’t be flagged as “to verify”.

Translation API

On the Create Translation endpoint, a new optional minor_change attribute lets you choose whether a change in the source translation should flag its translations as “to verify”.

Web Interface

On the web interface, the File Manager lets you set that option, too.

wti tool

Finally, I released a new version of the web_translate_it gem, the open-source synchronization tool for WebTranslateIt.

The latest version 1.9.6 has a new --minor option you can use with wti push. In order to upload minor changes you can now do: wti push --minor.

Install or Upgrade

To install web_translate_it, please refer to the gem documentation.

To upgrade web_translate_it to its latest version, type in a terminal: gem install web_translate_it.

I hope you will find this improvement useful. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.

Support for Microsoft ResW and ResJSON files

edouardbriere — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 08:55:06 +0100

WebTranslateIt now supports Microsoft ResW and ResJSON files. These files are used for localizing Windows 8 applications.

I added these new file formats to the list of linguistic file formats supported by WebTranslateIt.

Significant changes to the YAML File Handler

edouardbriere — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 09:48:36 +0100

I pushed quite a few changes to the YAML Handler in the last few months. This post is fairly technical, but if you use WebTranslateIt to localize your YAML files, read on.

Yamler changes

The biggest change is that I updated the YAML handler to handle both files dumped by Syck and Psych. Syck is an old and buggy YAML parser, which is replaced by Psych in Ruby 1.9.3. The problem is, YAML files dumped with Syck are not always parseable with Psych.

Since some users still upload projects using Syck, WebTranslateIt recognize both: it first tries to read your file using Psych. If it fails, it tries to read it using Syck.

The YAML files generated by WebTranslateIt are made with ya2yaml, another ruby library, which is both Syck and Psych compatible.

String ordering

Until a few weeks ago, strings in YAML files were alphabetically sorted. It means that WebTranslateIt probably wasn’t keeping the strings in your file in the same order you uploaded them.

WebTranslateIt now saves the order of your strings, and exports them in the same exact order.

I hope you will find these two changes to how YAML files are handled useful. Thank you for localizing your app with WebTranslateIt!

Download your WebTranslateIt TermBase as a TBX file

edouardbriere — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:44:55 +0100

I pushed a few improvements to the TermBase. One of these improvements is the ability to download your TermBase as a TBX File.

TBX (TermBase eXchange) is an industry standard for exchanging glossaries between translation tools.

The green button will let you download all the language pairs in a single TBX file. You can also download specific language pairs by clicking on the small button to the right.

This improvement is also available as an API endpoint: the TermBase to TBX endpoint.

New API endpoints: zip_file and top_translators

edouardbriere — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:22:39 +0100

I added two new API endpoints to WebTranslateIt’s API lately: zip_file and top_translators.

The zip_file endpoint serves all your project’s language files as a zip archive. It also takes an optional ?locale=xx parameter to serve all your project’s language files for in a specific locale. This feature has been added to the File Manager as well.
The top_translators endpoint serves a list of most active translators in a project. Top Translators is a list of the most active contributors to your translation project.

I hope you will find these new endpoints useful. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.

WordReference Integration

edouardbriere — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:19:00 +0100

WebTranslateIt’s integrated dictionary just got updated and now use WordReference.com as a source.

WordReference is one of the best dictionary website on the web and is well-liked among the translator’s community. It is now perfectly integrated to WebTranslateIt, so you can lookup words without leaving the translation interface.

Even better: you can request a definition for any word in the translation interface: select a word, press the d key and get definitions and translations without leaving WebTranslateIt.

I hope you will find this improvement to WebTranslateIt useful.

New in WebTranslateIt: Top Translators

edouardbriere — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:26:43 +0100

I just released Top Translators. This feature is a page which ranks the most active translators on a project. This is useful to reward the most active contributors on open-source or crowd-sourced translation projects.

You can filter this list by team, or see the user’s ranking across all language teams.

I hope you will find this feature useful. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.

TermBase API

edouardbriere — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 08:39:49 +0100

I just released an important update to WebTranslateIt’s API.

This update gives you full control on your project TermBase, its terms and its translations. It adds 8 new endpoints:

The TermBase API gets 5 endpoints: List, Show, Create, Update, and Delete.
The TermBase Translation API gets 3 endpoints: List, Create and Update.

You can use this API to import and export all the terms and translations from a TermBase.

I hope you will find this update useful. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.

New in WebTranslateIt: Autosave, WebHooks, new keyboard shortcuts...

edouardbriere — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 14:29:04 +0100

I rolled out a few improvements to WebTranslateIt this week: Autosave, Webhooks, new keyboard shortcuts…

Autosave

Autosave is a new option available in the translation toolbar.

It’s turned off by default. When you turn it on, translations are automatically saved as you type them. No need to click on save or type the Ctrl+s keyboard shortcut.

WebHooks

You can now setup a WebHook to a project on WebTranslateIt.

WebHooks are a way to tell WebTranslateIt to call a script on one of your own web servers whenever a translation was made and react in any way your want. WebHooks can be thought of as push notifications.

Setting up a WebHook is easy: in your project settings, a new “WebHook” section will let you enter the URL of your server to call.

Once this is setup WebTranslateIt will call the URL provided whenever a translation is saved on your project.

For detailed and technical information, please visit the documentation section about WebHooks.

New Keyboard shortcuts

I really like keyboard shortcuts. It’s a great way to save time while translating. You can learn more about keyboard shortcuts by hitting the h key anywhere in WebTranslateIt.

The two new keyboard shortcuts I added this week are really handy.

When editing a translation, the Tab key will save the current translation and jump to the next one.

You can also save the current translation and jump to the previous one by using Shift + Tab.

Miscellaneous improvements and bug fixes

Developer instructions can now be fully synced when synchronising a linguistic file
PHP Array and PHP Define files now support developer instructions
It is now possible to move a string from one file to another, from the “String Details” modal window.
Adding a string from the web interface now supports Right to Left languages
It is now possible to add a plural string from the web interface.

You can read more about all these improvements and bug fixes in the changelog.

I hope you will find these improvements useful. Thank you for using WebTranslateIt.

Support for Adobe FrameMaker .mif files and beta support for LaTeX documents

edouardbriere — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 12:54:56 +0100

WebTranslateIt now supports Adobe FrameMaker .mif files.

.mif (Maker Interchange Format) is a proprietary markup language associated with Adobe’s FrameMaker product for technical document preparation.

I am also currently testing support for LaTeX documents, a widely used file format in academia.

WebTranslateIt now supports more than 34 different linguistic file formats.

New Batch operations: Translate Complete Matches and Add Label

edouardbriere — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 12:52:00 +0100

I added 2 new batch operations to WebTranslateIt: Translate complete matches and Add Label.

Translate complete matches is a batch operation that looks for repetitions within your project (repetitions are segments matching entirely another segment which is already translated). When possible, this batch operation automatically translates the segment using the project translation memory. When no match was found, it leaves the translation empty.

Add Label is a batch operation to add a specific label to the selected strings. It is also possible to remove labels in batch.