Language File Testing

MarcEdit Internationalization Testing

In MarcEdit 6.0, the process for generating and populating language files within the application (to provide a native language UI for the international community) maybe changing.  In earlier versions of MarcEdit, language files were introduced as a way for local users to customize the UI text for their own local instances, but these files proved hard to update, and even harder to find volunteers to do any community supported translation, as well as provide long-term support for updating the files.  To try and solve both of these problems, I’ve created a new build utility that reads the MarcEdit source code, extracts UI strings, and then utilizing the Bing Translation API, provides an automated translation of the text.  The affect should be the ability to support close to 30 languages right out of the gate, so long as the translations are good enough, and then provide a way for users to locally modify the data.

However, before really committing to this approach, I need to answer the question — will the automatic translations be good enough.  If the answer is no, then I’ll need to start over.  If the answer is yes, then I’ll finish writing the code that will allow these new language files to be used within the program.

Below are 15 generated language files (plus the English language control) — if you happen to be proficient in an of the languages below, and would like to provide feedback…please select the language, the English language file, and take a look.  You can send feedback to the MarcEdit listserv or directly to me at: reeset@gmail.com

For users interested in the process that I’m using to extract text elements from my project files and use the API to generate these language files — I’ll be posting the C# source code into my github account.

Update (10/16/2014)

After receiving a number of responses, it seems that this approach seems to be a good one.  While the automated translations are not great, I’ve been told in many cases, with context, they are passable.  More importantly, they serve as a starting point for a real person to do the translation.  I’ve presently written the code into MarcEdit to allow for these files to be used, and over the next week, I’ll be posting information on how this will be implemented and how users can contribute data back to the project.  For the immediate future, I’ll be using github to host the master language files.  This will provide a place to manage the content and keep a record of changes.  Since many folks may not be familiar with git, I’ll provide a number of different avenues for folks interested in volunteering to help maintain the translation files.

Language Files: