Consider Migrating translations to self-hosted Weblate

[stoecker]

See comment:170:ticket:8645

Over the years Weblate became much better. A new attempt to switch from Launchpad to a better translation plattform should be considered.

• Modern interface, but still easy to use
• No more errors
• Git or SVN instead of Bazaar for translations
• Internal checks for translation errors (missing XML, dots at the end, ...)
• Self-hostable

Test instance by Woazboat: ​https://translate.codeberg.org/projects/josm_translate_test/

[Woazboat]

For reference, Panoramax also have their own self-hosted Weblate instance: ​https://weblate.panoramax.xyz/

[Woazboat]

Continued from #24164

Replying to stoecker:

Replying to Woazboat:

Many people said they wanted to help, but the issues with Launchpad prevented them from doing so.

Replying to Woazboat:

To be clear, what most of them said was that they did start translating but then gave up after a while because of issues with Launchpad.

It was another time - Launchpad was nearly unusable. You had error messages for most of the requests and 20-30 reloads didn't get results. They didn't fully solve the issue, but at least it is mitigated so much, that it is only a slight nuisance instead of a blocker. Today most translators are using Launchpad for the main work (i.e. Norwegian was translated with Launchpad interface in the last days), so while it could be better it is usable.

I've seen people complain about Launchpad very recently only in the past few days, not years ago. It's obvious that Launchpad still presents a barrier to entry that is turning potential contributors away.

[stoecker]

Replying to Woazboat:

I've seen people complain about Launchpad very recently only in the past few days, not years ago. It's obvious that Launchpad still presents a barrier to entry that is turning potential contributors away.

Seen these as well, but these are the "I would help if" people. Never seen before, will never see them again and from experience I know whatever I do, they will find new excuses. It's not always easy to decide, but spending to much time on "would if" requests takes away time from changing things which will actually help people doing something. The very translation stuff of JOSM started with such a "would if" guy. Many good requests and when I implemented the stuff I NEVER heard of him again. Didn't translate a single word.

Anyway I will see if I can setup an own Weblate instance in the next weeks and see if I can get it working reliable and better than Launchpad. Please keep the test instance running if possible.

[Hb---]

Replying to stoecker:

Test instance by Woazboat: ​https://translate.codeberg.org/projects/josm_translate_test/

Looks better than transifex and better than Launchpad. Direct links from strings to source code are also available.

[jibec]

I've been a long time OSM contributor ​https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/JIBEC and I'm involved into localization for Fedora operating system, which included helping dozen of projects to Weblate ​https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Jibecfed

I noticed your request to get more translation, and I'm sure a better tooling would help.
Also, have all content to translate using the translation platform would also increase contributor's efficiency.

As an admin of Fedora Weblate instance, I'll be happy to make some room for your project on ​https://translate.fedoraproject.org
Please note you can also have free hosting on ​https://hosted.weblate.org and probably on codeberg too.

Whatever what hosting you want (yours or a an ally project), weblate always interact with git repositories.
As long as it works with one Weblate instance, changing it over time is easy.

If needed:
. I can help you to migrate the translation platform wherever you decide (configure projects in Weblate, help with git management etc.).
. I can help you to migrate existing processes to weblate (the app, the plugins, the startup changelog)

I will not help in system administration if you wish to selfhost (even if I do have basic knowledge since I created the YNH package for Weblate a few years back ​https://github.com/YunoHost-Apps/weblate_ynh/ you are welcome to reuse part of this if you don't want to use docker images provided by weblate team).

Hope this helps:)

[Ceirios]

Very happy to see this ticket being opened and it's very encouraging, however I'd like to raise this from the previous thread:
Replying to stoecker:

Today most translators are using Launchpad for the main work (i.e. Norwegian was translated with Launchpad interface in the last days), so while it could be better it is usable. [...] Doing 10-20 strings a week is easy with the interface, even if it lacks a lot of nice helper functions (like showing similar strings, fuzzy strings, ...)

Simply "usable" doesn't necessarily equate to a good experience. Doing 10-20 strings per week is also an extremely slow rate, considering how many strings there are to translate and the technology we have now that Weblate, etc provide. These "helper functions" are in the vast majority of CAT programmes today and save an incredible amount of time. 10-20 strings can be done in minutes.

[stoecker]

Replying to Ceirios:

Doing 10-20 strings per week is also an extremely slow rate

10-20 new strings per week, that's JOSMs typical change rate.

[Ceirios]

That makes a lot more sense :)

[gaben]

I think this would greatly improve the i18n situation on JOSM.

Also, I would like to make my plugin translation (about 10 strings in total) available here if possible.

[stoecker]

Replying to gaben:

I think this would greatly improve the i18n situation on JOSM.

That's the plan, thought I need a bit time for this...

Also, I would like to make my plugin translation (about 10 strings in total) available here if possible.

If you move the plugin to JOSM group and thus allow checkins of the lang files when I update, you can that have already now.

[gaben]

Hallo everyone,

I'd like to really contribute in Weblate. Will I have a chance this year? Looking at Dirk :)

[stoecker]

I did a first try and failed to get it running. This year yes, but it will take some time.

[gaben]

Okay, that's not good. Do you remember which part went wrong? I think I already offered to help get Weblate up and running, but I cannot do so without input. Feel free to contact me via my registered email address. Alternatively, I'm available on the unofficial JOSM Matrix chat (preferred) ​https://matrix.to/#/#_oftc_#josm:matrix.org.

[jibec]

@stoecker same here, feel free to contact me via my registered email address. Alternatively, I'm available on the unofficial JOSM Matrix chat (preferred) ​​https://matrix.to/#/#_oftc_#josm:matrix.org.

[stoecker]

I'll ask when I have something to ask. Issue is not to get it installed somehow, but get a proper maintainable installation.

So if someone has a good installation guide for an Ubuntu 24.04 system using as much system components (apt-get) as possible and for the remaining parts use standard means (like pip3) that would be fine. Or keep it totally separate with download/extract/replace in /opt.

I started with "weblate-5.11.4.tar.gz" and tried to keep it in /opt, but that was not sooo fruitful yet.

Interface to Apache will be WSGI (like trac also).

[gaben]

If I'm not missing something, Weblate is distributed as a standard python wheel, you can get it installed in a virtual environment. So far everything is standard and portable. More on this here, but I'm sure you already checked ​https://docs.weblate.org/en/latest/admin/install/venv-debian.html

I can create a guide for Ubuntu 24.04 if needed. Do you have an idea where should I put it, preferably in Trac?

[stoecker]

Hello,

If I'm not missing something, Weblate is distributed as a standard python wheel, you can get it installed in a virtual environment. So far everything is standard and portable. More on this here, but I'm sure you already checked ​https://docs.weblate.org/en/latest/admin/install/venv-debian.html

Yeah, that will be my next try. Wonderful documentation: Lots of obvious stuff for the OS part explained en detail and the weblate installation in a few unexplained lines using an uncommon uv tool (a "record pip install as package" tool?).

I can create a guide for Ubuntu 24.04 if needed. Do you have an idea where should I put it, preferably in Trac?

In this ticket?

[gaben]

Well, I managed to get it working, but I wouldn't describe it as maintainable due to the large number of system dependencies. I think the primary installation method is Docker; that's why other guides fail to mention a few steps needed to get it running.

I'll test it again in the next few days and provide the exact steps. In short, the written steps at ​https://docs.weblate.org/en/latest/admin/install/venv-debian.html are mediocre. Ignore uv and use pip instead, and use the standard venv (installable via APT as python3-venv) to create the virtual environment. I also had to manually create the home directory (/home/weblate), for some reason.

[jibec]

a while ago, I were maintaining the YunoHost package for Weblate.
YunoHost is an "overlay" on Debian to help self hosting.
While there is a few specific helpers related YunoHost, I hope you may find a few interesting items in the code to help you

​https://github.com/YunoHost-Apps/weblate_ynh/blob/master/scripts/install

[jibec]

Weblate does a lot of releases, selfhosting may not be mandatory, since you can host josm project for free in at least three places:

​https://hosted.weblate.org (read ​https://weblate.org/fr/hosting/#hosted)
or ​https://translate.codeberg.org (read ​https://codeberg.org)
or ​https://translate.fedoraproject.org (I can help you here, I'm an admin)

[gaben]

Sorry, I'm not going to be able to work on this for a few weeks. I had a bicycle crash at the weekend, wrecking my clavickle.

[stoecker]

Wish you all the best. Later we can trade images of these lovely green blue lilac and red skin or the scars 😽 For me it was with my motorbike...

In case of an operation: Don't skip on physiotherapy afterwards to reduce scar pain or your body will tell you each day for years.

[stoecker]

Milestone renamed

[stoecker]

Milestone renamed