openmw.org

The admin of the "World of Elder Scrolls" forums recently asked me if there was a German translation for our homepage. I replied that we had sporadic attempts on doing German translations but, in the end, everyone came to the conclusion that a German translation wasn't necessary. He strongly objected to this point of view -- and I don't like it either.

Well, I like to handle things thoroughly which is why I started this new topic in the first place. In terms of translation, the following things come into my mind:

• all (upcoming) posts on our homepage,
• release announcements (done by me since v0.39.0),
• FAQ,
• Wiki pages,
• OpenMW's UI (language switcher for menu texts)
• OpenMW-CS's UI and tool tips.

I'll keep the last two items for later. The fourth item is really important regarding things like installation instructions, testing guidelines, contribution possibilities, game settings, and so on. I don't know how this works in a Wiki but could we have a language link on our left navigation panel (just like on Wikipedia)?

I'll see what I can do regarding the first three items. Maybe I find the time to translate some of the elder posts. Anyway, how would I upload my translations? Just copy & paste them here and let lgro take care of it? And what about the menu translation on our homepage?

Atahualpa wrote:I replied that we had sporadic attempts on doing German translations but, in the end, everyone came to the conclusion that a German translation wasn't necessary.

This isn't necessarily true, just that no one has taken any initiative to do so. Every once in awhile, we have people doing translations of posts for example. That people aren't doing it anymore isn't because it isn't necessary.

Wordpress has mods for handling i18n and localization.

OpenMW itself is extensible... just xml and conf files: someone just needs to take the time to translate them.

Oh, I didn't mean to tread on anybody's toes but the last time someone (or better two people) wanted to help out ended up very discouraging. Don't let that bother you.

Yeah... getting people to stick around (retention) isn't exactly our strong suite.