Translation of Unity packages

[I think that this topic fits better in the Ubuntu Unity Development category to be seen by the right people, but I’m not allowed to post a new topic there. Can some administrator please move it into that category.]

We got this message from a translator who asked how to correct translations of indicator-datetime.

The Unity family of packages was previously part of standard Ubuntu. Thus all the translation templates were made available to the translators via Launchpad, and the translations were included in the language packs.

Since those packages are no longer part of standard Ubuntu, they have been moved from main to universe, and that’s the reason for the current somewhat unclear situation. It’s important that the Unity7 team makes a decision about how to deal with translations going forward.

As @seb128 pointed out in a reply, it’s possible to re-enable the LP translation interface and the language packs for the Unity packages. The translations of those packages are generally in good shape, and this would probably be the smoothest solution.

For that to happen, someone needs to go through all the packages, add the line

X-Ubuntu-Use-Langpack: yes

to the debian/control file in each package source (where it’s not there already), and upload.

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For the sake of whoever’s doing this, could you perhaps give links to the relevant packages and maybe wikis/guides for doing LP merges (in case a complete noob wants to do this)? :slight_smile:

I might potentially have some time to do this on Monday… but am more than happy for someone else to take it, and I would be a complete noob…!

Identifying which packages are affected is part of the task. I assume that the Unity7 team has an up-to-date list. I have not.

Well, I don’t think this would be an appropriate job for a noob. It’s best done by someone who knows about package uploading and has upload rights for the packages in question. Probably a MOTU member.

I don’t have the upload rights. @dale-f-beaudoin and @tsimonq2 has. All I can do is to open a merge request. But there are multiple packages affected.

@ads20000
I can help you…please pm me.

One idea is to file a bug report and there state each affected package.

Since this is about simply adding a line, I don’t think that merge requests would be helpful. I rather think that it’s just as easy for someone with upload rights to just do it based on the list of packages in the bug report.

Right. I filed a bug here: Bug #1760435 “Use Ubuntu language packs for various Unity packag...” : Bugs : indicator-datetime package : Ubuntu

I will ask @tsimonq2 to upload if he is not too busy. :wink:

That’s a step in the right direction, @khurshid-alam, but please note that this is not just about the indicator-* packages, but also about for instance:

  • unity

  • unity-settings-daemon

  • unity-control-center

In other words, I think that the whole Unity stack needs to be considered. Possibly some packages include that line already, but all packages which don’t - and if they include translatable strings - must be changed.

Commented on the bug report.

I’ll wait for Gunnar to leave an ACK on the bug report then before uploading.

Thanks.

I’m not a ‘Unity 7 dev’ per se but I don’t know anyone who actually is? We’re all just trying to help as (near-)complete novices to keep Unity in universe?

@dale-f-beaudoin or someone else…do you have a manifest of the ubuntu-unity.iso? That might be helpful…but I guess this needs sorting ASAP and Dale might not be around in time :frowning:

This Package Search Result (packages with ‘unity’ in their names in universe in bionic) might be useful but presumably some of those dependencies need fixing as well? Also do the doc ones need fixing or not?

What does that mean? What’s an ACK? :slight_smile:

Acknowledgement. Meaning, he agrees with the changes.

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I already ACK’ed one package. :smile:

As regards affected packages, I run a command which resulted in this list. Possibly something to work with…

Now, after some observations stated in the bug report, it seems like the state of Unity package translations is worse than I thought. Many packages includes a setting which tells the package builder to strip the translations from source, and at the same time no translations will be included in the langpacks without action.

So yes, as @ads20000 said, this is indeed urgent. If it’s not sorted very soon, we may end up with a Unity desktop in 18.04 with a lot of translations absent.

I have asked @seb128 for advice on certain things, and we won’t proceed with package uploads before he has responded.

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U-c-c and u-s-d both use X-Ubuntu-Use-Langpack: yes. Although lack of template could be a problem. Why they got deleted? As for u-s-d most translation is done at gnome-settings-daemon (usd doesn’t really have a data folder). We can skip lenses and scopes for now. I am going to drop those lenses which doesn’t work anymore.

For unity we need to ask @3v1n0 or @seb128 .

We have made progress on the bug report, which now lists a bunch of affected packages where X-Ubuntu-Use-Langpack: yes needs to be added through package uploads. Ping @tsimonq2. :wink:

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I think this has been sorted and fixed now. In short:

  • The translation templates had been deactivated by mistake. The templates for at least the most important packages have been reactivated.

  • The string X-Ubuntu-Use-Langpack: yes has been added to a bunch of Unity packages which didn’t have it already. Thanks @tsimonq2 for helping with that!

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