How to translate scripts/plugins?

[DeathAxe]

Hello guys,

MediaMonkey comes along with a powerful scripting engine, which enables nearly everyone to write extensions without a certain IDE (even if I would prefere more performant way to handle extensions). The flexible extensability with scripts is one of the most powerful advantages of MediaMonkey.

But how to translate those scripts to a language diferent from english? I would prefer to have a full german interface. Unfortunatelly some option pages and even some menuitems are still english as they were added by scripts. I have no problem with understanding them, but it is a bit confusing to have mixedlingual interface.

Is it completely up to a script developer to implement a translation engine for his/her script, our is ther a common interface, which could be used? I could imagine to have a mo-file for each script/plugin with its translations inside.

[Peke]

You are completely Right, and we are currently looking into safe way how to make that possible without limiting MM Script Developers and slow down MM functioning.

See http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=2544

[trixmoto]

The first example of a fully translated script would be my Monkey Rok script, and others have copied the same method for their own. If you find a better way of doing it, please let me know!

ADDITION: Sorry, when I first read your post I thought you were asking from a scripter's point of view, but when I re-read it seemed like you were asking from a user's point of view. This response only really makes sense for the former so sorry if it's irrelevant for you.

[DeathAxe]

I saw, some scripters using their own translation functionality, but only some. And each script has its own configuration page, where to select the desired language. Each script should select the language according to the display language of MediaMonkey automatically!

I asked for a general method of translating displayed texts in scripts to prevent scripters from worrying about translation and enable everyone (me) to add own translations without rewriting a script. I am not so familiar with VBScript or JavaScript and in fact I don't like them (Wrote some scripts for Word/Excel). I would prefere a clean and fast C/C++ API, as I am convinced of the scripting engine to slow down many things due to poor memory management and some other limitations. With C/C++ a plugin developer could simply use the gnu gettext functions _("...") to enable translation. But maybe this will be available for VBScripts, too some day. When writing some small plugin for Miranda IM I learned about the translation mechanism it uses. It makes use of a sorted list with binary search for translation. I find it a very small and powerful method of translation and user can write translation files without extra tools as needed with gnu gettext.

But nevertheless, the functionality and flexibility of MediaMonkey is very impressive and I am looking forward to have a complete GUI in my language in near future

[rosetaylor01]

thanks now i can translate mediamonkey into a specify script but tell me the easy way to translate using c or c++ .

[davideliza]

Hi DeathAxe,
There are many softwares are available concern with translation of different languages.MediaMonkey comes along with a powerful scripting engine, which enables nearly everyone to write extensions. The flexible extensibility with scripts is one of the most powerful advantages of MediaMonkey. But the problem is that how to translate those scripts to a language different from English. Unfortunately some option pages and even some menu items are still English as they were added by scripts. Is it completely up to a script developer to implement a translation engine for his/her script.Thanks

[Peke]

We are trying figure out unified way to make translation of scripts much easier and make Script developers easier life.

[civiliza]

There is also the problem of conciseness.

A scriptwriter working in a familiar language would typically choose the shortest phrase possible for an option name. Good grammer might well be forsaken as a result.

Faced with dubious grammer, any attempt at automatic translation might well be inaccurate. Also a concept that can be expressed concisely in one language might not be as concise in another language.

(PS. All this is guesswork, other than the occasional word here and there, I cannot speak other languages).