[wiki] International TextBook

Destry · 2006-04-24 19:35:06

TextBook has been international for a while now, but I guess it hasn’t always been apparent, nor exactly satifying.

It’s been expressed a number of times lately that TextBook’s architecture needs improved, particularly with respect to navigation and multilingual emphasis, two important things indeed. Here are the relevant threads on the topic, there’s probably others not listed, but please, let’s keep it centralized or your good ideas get lost:

A stronger focus on internationalizing TextBook is certainly needed, and I think we need to first look at the the internationalization problem and let that dictate navigation. I don’t want to rehash what the intenational problem is, but if you follow up with the second link above, you’ll get a sense of what we need to address. Read that if you haven’t then follow along with me next.

Back so soon? OK, so it’s not the first time I’ve said I really like what the Mozilla folks have done with their MediaWiki install, MozillaWiki: it’s custom, slimmed down (yet has a purposeful navigation), and most of all it doesn’t look like every other MediaWiki install. One thing they don’t do at MozillaWiki, as far as I can tell, is the multilingual thing, so we can’t really look for models there, but they do other things nice…keep it in mind.

For our multilingual approach, perhaps it’s time we turn our main page into a language index page. No documentation links, just language partition links, big, bold text in the respective language that needs represented. The links themselves then go to the index page for each language groups content, which would effectively be something like the current main page now. This could very simply handle a couple of problems that we seem to be facing: First, it will establish immediately that the wiki branches into language partitions, and the partitions will be stupidly obvious from the get-go. Second, language groups can then move forward with centralizing content from distributed sources without immediately worrying about translating to English.

Yes, there has been an effort to keep international documentation efforts parallel (as I’ve discussed before), and that’s still the objective; however, what has changed is now language groups can add new pages as they desire in their own language first (apparently the Italians have already gone down that road). Because TextBook is in English by default, we ask that you make an honest effort to translate your languages content to English whenever possible (in other words, as soon as you can). Nevertheless, for all language pages other than English, an English page link should be added immediately, even if it’s to an empty page. This will help to establish the mirror process, as well as serve as a reminder that TextBook is a place for sharing, and sharing means translating.

I’ll likely need to ping all the language reps to get eyes on this, we TextBook admins hope to see some constructive feedback on how to move forward with making language efforts more encouraging and apparent.

Skubidu · 2006-04-24 20:55:08

For our multilingual approach, perhaps it’s time we turn our main page into a language index page. No documentation links, just language partition links, big, bold text in the respective language that needs represented.

I think this is a good idea. Some kind of “Hey, this is Textpattern. You’re welcome and we speak your native language.”

alexandra · 2006-04-26 08:37:11

I like the table of content in the mozilla wiki a lot:
http://wiki.mozilla.org/MozillaWiki:Community_Portal:“Community_Portal

it is a great overview, easy to understand and well structured.

Textpatterns TB could have, as Destry suggests, a multilingual entrance page and as next a table of content as the mozilla wiki – in all the different languages.

Last edited by alexandra (2006-04-26 08:37:29)

Destry · 2006-04-26 16:59:12

The table of contents, as your calling it, in the Mozilla wiki is MediaWiki’s Community Portal page, and yes, I agree, they make good use of it. We have Comm Port in TextBook too that is certainly under utilized. The problem I see is that it’s not the default page, but rather requires a second click upon arrival to TextBook to get to it. Also, as far as ToC’s, indexes, or whatever you want to call it go, it’s really not any different than what we already have…Mozillawiki’s has lists of links in a vertical direction, we have lists of links in horizontal direction, and both site’s index’s are categorized into groups of some type. It’s not radically different.

Let’s stick to the international thing for the moment and see if that helps lead us to structure and navigation improvements. I’ve talked about the idea of making the home page a new International access window to the wiki; consider the following two images for clearer understanding:

The two images (above and below) reflect the possible approach of taking MediaWiki’s built-in language links function, pulling it out of the left column, restyling it differently (big and bold), and moving it to the main page. That would be the only thing on the main page, and it would be automatically adjusted as new language efforts were launched in the wiki. The existing main page content would be moved to a new page that is titled in similar fashion as all other language pages, but respective to English: En/Main Page.

This simple adjustment in the wiki should clear-up the “where’s German?” type issues, as well as establish a better sense of equality among all languages. It also eliminates the need to worry about putting the language links of other pages in a prominant place, because by that point one should realize they are in the pages of a given language (assuming they come to the wiki from the default international page). Make sense? What am I overlooking?

Feedback, comments, other ideas?

Oh, yeah, and it might be good to clarify immediately, perhaps as a translated statement under each respective language link on the International portal page that a person can/needs to manually configure their profile to view the entire interface in their respective language. I guess this won’t work for casual visitors, but it supposedly would work for members. In any case, it’s the best we can do at the moment so we should try and wring what we can out of it.

If there are other ideas about concepts to be communicated on the main page, bring them to light; but remember, if it can be handled in the respective index of a given language, put it there, as anything on the lang portal page would likely need to be translated in all languages, and as you can imagine that could eat up realestate quickly (assuming our list of active languages grows, and we should allow for that possibility).

Last edited by Destry (2006-04-26 17:10:04)

Destry · 2006-04-30 08:16:55

Since there’s been no objections, I’ve begun making the changes as proposed above.

I have not moved the languages list generated by MediaWiki itself, though that’s still an objective if possible, I’ve only created the list manually, which works just as easy.

Also, it’s easy to rename the main page too, and by doing so MediaWiki will automatically create a redirect to the newly named page. This will prevent main page links all around the world (and I’m guessing there’s a lot of them) from breaking; but it will be a redirect nonetheless, so before I make any changes in that direction, how to people feel about it?

Also, what do we rename the page to. Obviously we can’t translate to every possible language, it has to be a single title, so we want to select something that is pretty understandable across the globe. I think the word “TextBook” is a given, and then something that indicates the international aspects, so for example: TextBook International.

Other thoughts?

Skubidu · 2006-04-30 09:53:37

I have not moved the languages list generated by MediaWiki itself, though that’s still an objective if possible, I’ve only created the list manually, which works just as easy.

Thanks for making these changes. It’s a step in the right direction. As you mentioned some time ago, Textpattern’s “native language” is English so I think, we should start the list of avaiable languages with English, listing the other languages in a new paragraph.

What about a more welcoming title for the language links. Perhaps a nice title as link (“Welcome to…”) and a subtitle that describes what can be found on the following Wiki pages. Short and friendly.

Destry · 2006-04-30 17:59:28

Thanks for the feedback, Skubidu.

Skubidu wrote: As you mentioned some time ago, Textpattern’s “native language” is English so I think, we should start the list of avaiable languages with English, listing the other languages in a new paragraph.

I appreciate what you’re saying, but I don’t think we have to be quite so redundant. English readers will understand easy enough what the score is; besides, wasn’t the existing emphasis on English what everyone was all up in arms about anyway? Let’s play around with a couple of things and see what ticks; if something doesn’t work, we’ll change it, no big deal, but let’s start by going as neutral as possible with the main page. (I simply used alphabetical order for the language list, figured that was the most democratic.)

What about a more welcoming title for the language links. Perhaps a nice title as link (“Welcome to…”) and a subtitle that describes what can be found on the following Wiki pages. Short and friendly.

What do you mean by title, exactly…do you mean the page title (“Main Page”), or a first heading on the page? We need to focus on the page title at the moment. If this is going to be the international portal, like it seems it’s going to be, then the page title should be something more language generic. I don’t think an English “Welcome” is it.

Ask yourself this: how different does the word “welcome” look across different languages (at least latin-based languages) compared to the word “international”. If the difference in appearance is smaller with “international”, then that’s a more logical word to use. Again, the word “TextBook” stands on it’s own legs.

Or, just donning on me, how about simply “TextBook” as the page title?

I just want to make sure we are getting the title thing right the first time since it involves redirecting the page.

As for subtitles (or whatever) you mean under each respective link, right? I’m assuming so as that would allow each language to provide a summary as they want in their own language (albeit short). For example, see what I’ve done with the English link.

hcgtv · 2006-04-30 18:09:54

Destry,

Just wanted to say that Textbook is looking really nice.

Muy bonito ;)

Skubidu · 2006-04-30 18:16:48

What do you mean by title, exactly

Sorry, I wasn’t clear enough in my last posting. I was not talking about the headline of the page (TextBook International is quite a good title for that!). I was thinking about changing the language links under this headline. By know it says “en/Main Page” or “de/Startseite” so why don’t we change this to “Welcome to the TextBook” or “Willkommen im TextBook” and add a new line as description (that’s what I called subtitle).

As for subtitles (or whatever) you mean under each respective link, right? I’m assuming so as that would allow each language to provide a summary as they want in their own language (albeit short).

Exactly :)

For example, see what I’ve done with the English link.

Hmm… Can’t see anything. Did I miss something?!

Destry · 2006-04-30 18:33:39

Uh, no, sorry. I just didn’t make it over there yet, but since we understand each other now, no need for the example.

I agree on both counts, and “Welcome to TextBook” works for me. I tried modifying the links at first, but the characters in French and Spanish didn’t convert. I think there might be something to do with the “xx/” part of the syntax that MediaWiki uses to know it’s a language other than English…not positive, need to play a bit. Feel free to try something if you like.

Destry · 2006-04-30 18:37:20

hcgtv wrote:

Just wanted to say that Textbook is looking really nice.

Styling credit goes to David_1cog. I feel it’s a tad bit muted in appearance, but that’s just my preference (or glazed eyes). David’s modifications to the code side were tremendous improvements.

Last edited by Destry (2006-04-30 18:38:20)

Skubidu · 2006-05-01 15:56:48

Hi Destry!

I added a notice on the frontpage for Germans, that we are still looking for volunteers to help out with the documentation.

I’ve got two ideas regarding the frontpage (TextBook International):

It would be nice to have a link to an index page (all articles from A-Z) at the bottom of the page
What about a prominent link on top to the download page at textpattern.com (like here, here or here)

And I have got one generall but important question:
How do I add a totally new page? Is there a place where I can see the hierachy/structure of all pages?

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#1 2006-04-24 19:35:06

[wiki] International TextBook

#2 2006-04-24 20:55:08

Re: [wiki] International TextBook

#3 2006-04-26 08:37:11

Re: [wiki] International TextBook

#4 2006-04-26 16:59:12

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#5 2006-04-30 08:16:55

Re: [wiki] International TextBook

#6 2006-04-30 09:53:37

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#7 2006-04-30 17:59:28

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#8 2006-04-30 18:09:54

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#11 2006-04-30 18:37:20

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#12 2006-05-01 15:56:48

Re: [wiki] International TextBook

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