[Localization] [Announce] New language packs

[Sayamindu Dasgupta]

Hello everyone,
While we try to figure out the best way to handle new translations
_after_ an OS release has been made, I am testing a new language pack
generation system.

The new features supported by this pack are:

* Support for activity.linfo files
This has been a long standing request. The earlier language pack used
to provide only MO files, and not the activity.linfo files (which are
generated during .xo bundle creation). As a result, names of the
activities would remain untranslated. Our pack_v2 (as I call it),
fixes this, and supports automatic generation and installation of
activity.linfo files

* Support for rollback and uninstallation
With each language pack, there is a file called uninstall_langpack_XX
(where XX is your language code). When you run it, it will a) Remove
the files that were installed by the pack b) Restore files that had
been overwritten by the pack. This thing is not very robust (install a
language pack more than once, and I expect things to break), but at
least we have something to start off with :-)

* Support for branches
Previous language packs only targeted joyride. This was a restriction
imposed by the script which generated them. This time, we have two
sets of language packs, one for 8.1x and one for 8.2x. This will get
better (hopefully) in the next releases, where I hope to see proper
adherence to string freeze by _most_ of the modules we ship.


I have generated a set of packs - they are available at
http://dev.laptop.org/~sayamindu/langpacks_v2/ (choose your branch
appropriately).
Directions for use:
If you are using a 8.2 pre release or Joyride, and want to test out
the latest Spanish translations, download
http://dev.laptop.org/~sayamindu/langpacks_v2/8.2/es_lang_pack_v2.sh
and run it in your XO (or inside a Qemu instance).

Give it a spin, and let me know if you find any bugs or have any
suggestions. I'll put up the sources of the generator scripts as soon
as I figure out how to move my local git repository to dev.laptop.org

Thanks,
Sayamindu


-- 
Sayamindu Dasgupta
[http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings]