Enable download & upload of any project in gettex & xliff file format

[bugzilla-to-github]

This issue was created automatically by a script.

Bug 1228718

Bug Reporter: @flodolo CC: @Fjoerfoks, gialloporpora@mozillaitalia.org, inma.barrios@mozilla-hispano.org, @jordis, @Pike, @mathjazz, @Osmose, papapep@gmx.com, underpass_bugzilla@outlook.it, @yfdyh000

Spin-off of bug 1219212.

Having the ability to download a project in XLIFF or GetText format, regardless of the format used in the repo, could be useful.

This is true especially for projects based on monolingual files (e.g. properties, in the future l20n), where offline translation becomes more complicated.

[bugzilla-to-github]

Comment Author: @Pike

The format conversion is something I consider to be totally optional. We shouldn't tie ourselves to whatever po or xliff can do.

Falling back somewhat gracefully in those scenarios could be nice, as long as we can ensure that a no-op roundtrip actually turns out to be a no-op.

I'm in particular thinking about upcoming features in l20n, which we might need to implement in ways that just break conversions.

[bugzilla-to-github]

Comment Author: @mathjazz

Lowering the importance level to default.

Speaking with my Mozillian hat on, I'm not convinced native apps as such have any advantage over web apps. Which is why I think we should focus on issues users of offline translation tools currently face within Pontoon (e.g. bugs 983096, 1216546, 1209159).

[bugzilla-to-github]

Comment Author: @Pike

With my open-source hat on, being able to run scripts over source code empowers a lot of tooling that is hard to add to each of the available editing tools.

Which is more of an argument in favor of the original source, and not so much an argument to have pontoon be a general purpose file converter service.

[bugzilla-to-github]

Comment Author: @jordis

With my translator hat on, I thought Pontoon was intended to be a step forward with respect to Pootle, but I'm realizing that it may indeed be a step forward for developers (deeper git integration and whatnot), but not for translators and l10n teams: some of them might need more flexibility because of their own customized workflows. I do not think that being able to download a project in .po/.xliff format would turn Pontoon in a general purpose file converter. Instead, it maintains the features we already have in place, instead of taking a step back.

With my l10n project manager hat on, a CAT tool is no use to me if there are no means to reuse the translation with whatever other CAT tool of my choice. I'm not sure whether Pontoon is intended to be Mozilla-centric, in which case I might understand why there is little importance given to this feature, but if it would have to be useful to other projects outside Mozilla, then I think Pontoon's usefulness will be limited without this feature.

Finally, with my Softcatala member hat on (a Catalan organization to promote Catalan in computers and Internet), we built a resource which gathers all known open-source projects translated into Catalan and indexes their memories: https://www.softcatala.org/recursos/memories.html Which is a valuable resource as a reference for Catalan translators working for other projects. Additionally, a quality report is generated for each project. Without an option to download the projects in a usable format (even in .tmx), projects in Pontoon will not be able to be indexed, reused, searched, nor QA'd.

[bugzilla-to-github]

Comment Author: @mathjazz

:-)

Jordi, Pontoon was initially intended as something quite different than it is today. But the main idea behind it remains the same - to make translation process easier, especially for localizers (in general, not focusing on Pootle particularly).

I haven't lowered the priority from high to default because I thougt the feature you're asking for is not necessary. In which case I would close it. Instead, I find some other issues more important and affecting more users. BTW, only 16 out of 83 open bugs are marked with higher priority. ;)

ATM Pontoon is entirely Mozilla-centric. I'm not aware of any other public instance besides https://pontoon.mozilla.org/, which is only used for Mozilla projects. That also means part of the functionality you're asking for is covered by Transvision: https://transvision.mozfr.org/downloads/

BTW, nice work with https://www.softcatala.org/recursos/memories.html!

[bugzilla-to-github]

Comment Author: @mathjazz

As agreed with Jordi, filing bug #1333850 and lowering the priority of this one.