Translation into other languages

[kkapsner]

Which languages should we support?

I think German and English are given - anything else?

Should we include all quote rules we know of? (A quick search offered this)
Or only German and Englisch? I think French is also commonly used.

[theAlinP]

I will translate it into Romanian.

Let's include as many as we can. I noticed that only the beginning quotes used in the German language are identical with the ones used in Romanian, so maybe we could let the user choose the beginning and end quotes.

[kkapsner]

My idea in https://github.com/spodermenpls/smartquotes/blob/kkapsner-dev/compose/rules.js is to have different rules which are determined by the UI language and can also be change manually (currently it's only per composer window and not yet a global setting, but we could change that).

Maybe a "custom" quote rule there where the user can provide the beginning and end quotes in a setting page can be a good idea. For all the folks that are not German, English or Romanian.

[jobisoft]

try to get a free account at crowdin.com - they make it free for open source. The crowdin interface to github makes this sooooo easy.

[kkapsner]

Found this - there are very unfamiliar quotation marks... I have never seen the Japanese ones.

[spodermenpls]

@jobisoft There's no trying needed, I already have one. 😅 I'll set up the project there with its source strings as soon as possible.

Choosing between different writing languages and their quotation systems (typographic, guillemots..) isn't the same as localizing the UI texts though, so those should be handled / work independently from each other.

[spodermenpls]

I was about to fill out the "open-source application form" over there, the conditions however say that one has to have worked on it for at least three months.. with now having barely 1 month of time on this repo (and no publishment on ATN, yet), a request right now may be getting declined, it's probably better to do it the oldschool way (manually / PR) in the time being.

[jobisoft]

Why not have the different quote styles per language in the localization files?

[spodermenpls]

Because one can be native to one language and write in multiple other ones, deviating from the native tongue?

[jobisoft]

ah, there could be more/other quote rules included than actual languages prepared for UI. got it.

[kkapsner]

@jobisoft: It there an API to get the current dictionary language for the composer window? I think it would be neat to have a mode where the quote rules are automatically changed upon the selected spell checking language.

[kkapsner]

with its source strings as soon as possible.

You do not have to set up the source strings. The Github interface can do that automatically (that's what I do for CB).

it's probably better to do it the oldschool way (manually / PR) in the time being.

For CB I created a translate.js script that helped with that. I will copy it to this project.

[spodermenpls]

I also found this site: https://smartquotesforsmartpeople.com/ , implementing support for single openings/closings might be worth consideration too.

[kkapsner]

They are already implemented for English. I think they are not used in German...

[spodermenpls]

The Crowdin open-source license was granted after all. I contacted the support since I still had the "14 day trial" (with deletion of my whole account after that) dangling over my account after creating the project, so I mentioned the insufficent age of the project as the reason of my reluctance to send the request and my decision to delete the whole thing again. The conversationist replied to that with "I guess we can make a little exception in terms [of] 3-months rules 😉".
So I did apply today, after setting it up once again, and after mere minutes the request was approved. Getting Crowdin to do exactly what I want in regards to this repo is still a bit complex for me, but I'll get used to it, I am sure.

I also put the first "release" together, so it's a bit easier for outsiders to install the extension (which already achieved parity with the original "Smart Quotes").