Toward a better localizing experience

[Glandos]

Hi!

First of all, small background: I'm primarily a developer, and sometimes a translator, as I am for Element Web.

I was quite happy with the experience on https://translate.element.io/ The UI is less modern than some other translation platforms, but efficient, and that seems the main goal of a translation tool for me. Get the job done in an efficient way.

I was notified of the move to Localazy for Element Web (tracked in element-hq/element-web#25608), due to technical requirements from the Element X team. I am not really a fan of proprietary platform for translations of open source projects, but the UX seems to be smoother than the Weblate-based one, so I was happy to give it a try.

However, here comes the paint points. It's basically the same content I posted in element-hq/element-web#25608 (comment):

• Onboarding is difficult: create a localazy account, ask access to language in matrix.to/#/#element-translations:matrix.org then accept invitation, then re-notify room to get access.
• Access to other languages is forbidden: it seems that localazy has no "read-only" access. This really helpful to see the current state of translations, what other translators did to solve some issue
• Keyboard shortcut are far from complete: to fill a suggestion, it is required to blur translation input with ESC, then insert with SHIFT+1 (or 2, 3, etc.). But refocusing input can only be done either with tabbing like a monkey, since / triggers my browser find feature instead of focusing input.
• Keyboard shortcut, reloaded: placeholders, such as %(value) are hard to type. In Weblate, shortcuts CTRL+1 (2, 3 for more) insert placeholder at cursor location. It seems only possible to click on the placeholder in Localazy, this is a hard TMS trigger.

As a developer, the most striking fact is the nonexistence of a read-only access. As a translator, the most painful fact is the lack of shortcut for placeholders, since they are usually hard to type (on purpose).

I don't ask for an explanation on why this platform was used, since it fits a developer requirement, to avoid duplication, to bring a better coherence to Element product family.
I open this discussion to any ideas that can improve or remove those pain points. If you have answers, workarounds, or even proper fixes for them, I'll be delighted to hear (or read) them.

[meskobalazs]

I would also add one pain point. Localazy does not have offline translation capabilities, which is a massive hit in productivity. The support of PO file generation, and updating from them is one of the best features of Weblate.

[Glandos]

This is not a real answer, but I've successfully been able to use Poedit from it's latest release (3.4). It's not offline, it's not PO :)

[Glandos]

Peek.17-10-2023.10-07.mp4

This is another issue. It seems that project authorization are not really consistent.

[Glandos]

When a change occurred in source language, Weblate used to show this change as a diff. In Localazy, when only have a notification in the translation input, without knowing what to change:

[Glandos]

I don't know how to get more visibility from ElementX team, but this discussion is currently in the top 4.
So I'm pinging @bmarty @stefanceriu @pixlwave as gently as possible (Top contributors on ElementX Android and ElementX iOS and owners in Localazy)

[pixlwave]

Hey, thanks for opening this discussion. For the first 2 points, we have changed the access permissions on Element Web (and will do similar on Element X) to make the project more open.

For the second 2 points on keyboard shortcuts, those sound like valid feedback to me, but is very much feedback for Localazy rather than ourselves. I would suggest you contact them with suggestions on what would make translation easier for you. Their email address is here: https://localazy.com/contact

Similar thoughts for the diff on changes to the source string.

[Glandos]

Thanks for taking care of that! The openness of this project is rather important for me 👍

Speaking of that, I won't take the time to contact Localazy. I don't have any interest in improving their product. I deeply think that FLOSS is the way to go for tooling.

[Glandos]

Plus, I have searched in their forum for keyboard shortcuts to insert placeholders: https://discuss.localazy.com/t/shortcut-for-inserting-placeholders-and-markup/274

Idea posted and validated in 2021. Nothing since then. It seems like a waste of my resources to contact them.

By the way, I stopped translating Element in French, this is too difficult from the user experience right now.

[Glandos]

It's not really obvious on this capture, but warnings from rules display a dialog on validation. This is OK, but if I press Escape, the focus is not in the translation input anymore.

Peek.11-11-2023.14-12.mp4

This was also an issue in the Weblate used by Element, but it was fixed in recent version of Weblate.

[pixlwave]

Similarly to #2134 (reply in thread), this is an issue to take up with Localazy 🙂

[Glandos]

I'm unable to search for keys or string in source language. In my current use case, I wanted to know where "knock" were used and translated to have a consistent translation.
Is there a way to have such an overview?

[t3chguy]

@Glandos is your complaint specific to https://localazy.com/p/element - does it apply to https://localazy.com/p/element-web?

[Glandos]

It was about https://localazy.com/p/element-web
As far as I understood, I don't have access to https://localazy.com/p/element (Element X), since the team would like to hire professional translators for (at least) French.

[t3chguy]

Hmm yes, interesting that they lock down the source language like that.

[erkinalp]

I would prefer a special-purpose Matrix room version, where every base string is a state event (m.translation_key), and translated strings are state events with two-dimensional state keys (m.translation_key+lang).

[t3chguy]

How would review & permissions work for such a system? Can't just give everyone write access to all languages.

[erkinalp]

On a RBAC basis per-language and per-translation-key, with defaulting to read only on both axises.

[t3chguy]

That isn't something Matrix state supports, so you'd need a room per translation key, which seems subpar.

[erkinalp]

Currently existing room versions do not support two-dimensional state keys, but there is nothing intrinsic to how Matrix works that would prevent such a room version from being authored.