Translatewiki.net
This is a clever project that is in the process of localising MediaWiki. The Translate MediaWiki extension was started in 200S by translatewiki.net/wiki/User:Nike and translatewiki.net/ wiki/User:Gangleri, and has become very popular for localising MediaWiki, its extensions and a host of other software. MediaWiki itself has been designed with internationalisation and localisation in mind. So it’s no wonder that it is available in over 280 languages. Like other Web-based projects, this too requires a contributor to create an account and select preferred languages. Then a project can be selected for localisation, and its various messages can be localised.
Figures 3 and 4 show a typical localisation screenshot. The suggestions from translation memory are shown, along with the percentage of matches, and the blue dots following the number are hyperlinks to the actual translation. The information about the context of the string is shown next, followed by the source, and then an edit box to enter the localised text. This update is saved just like a Wikipedia page. Additional menu buttons allow easy navigation across the messages. Another advantage with this tool is that most updates will go live on the respective language wiki projects of Wikimedia Foundation in 24 hours.
Most Indian-language MediaWiki projects would have been already localised. But occasionally, users may come across pages for which some messages are still in English (Figure 5). Usually, when a project is partially localised, WUyLQg WR VeDUFK IRU WKe VSeFLfiF PeVVDge LV WLPe-FRQVXPLQg for typical free software. In MediaWiki, it becomes very VLPSOe WR ORFDWe WKe PeVVDgeBLG Ey DSSeQGLQg ‘? uselang=qqx’ to the URL of the page. In such a case, MediaWiki software displays message_ids rather than actual English strings (Figure S). Then you can use the message_id to search Translatewiki.net to directly locate the untranslated message string and translate it (Figure T).
In this article, we have seen three different Web-based platforms for localisation, which make it easy for anybody to contribute to localisation in their preferred languages. So why not try your hand at it, and share your experience with fellow readers? I will be happy to devote an article exclusively to your feedback and questions.