[valtam]

[member=6629]ralphy[/member] and others who see this in the future.

I feel the need to outline the future development and structure of the Linux Lite project moving forward.
This is not a plan set in concrete as you have to be flexible and ready to adjust the path in order to accommodate changes in Debian and subsequently the Ubuntu dev communities.

The workload must be in proportion to the team size. We may be tempted to implement many changes at a given time, but this extra work must be in proportion to the size of the team.

Series 3.x

- Refine, improve existing Linux Lite applications in their existing computer languages.

- New Lite apps to be developed in Yad. eg. Lite Sources.

- Help Manual to have a built in, offline search feature. Solution must be resource friendly (not heavy and slow).

Series 4.x

- All Lite apps will use both Zenity and Yad. The use of Yad allows our developers more options.

- All Lite apps will have our own distinctive, professionally crafted, scalable icons.

- EOG likely to replace Ristretto.

- Menu overhaul. The Menu will no longer have renamed applications. When restoring the Menu via Alacarte, the Menu is messed up. Linux Lite will long be established enough for our community to adjust to these minor changes. New home required for Install Updates, Help Manual in the Menu.

- Split up existing Linux Lite apps into their own singular applications so that they are easier to manage. eg. Create System report, Enable/Disable Autologin etc.

- UEFI will be seriously considered. By this point in time, UEFI will be well entrenched in computers. If we are to move more Windows people to their new home in Linux, it will be necessary to implement support for this bullshit technology.


Series 5.x

- Introduce translations for our apps through a service similar to https://www.transifex.com

More will be added to this in time.

[ralphy]

I have a concern I wanna share with you Jerry.

Translations can certainly wait (although I have read a lot of complaints online about LL not translating its own apps and being a terrible inconvenience for non english speakers). Anyways, my point:

We are doing bash scripting with no support for LANG at all. None of our code has a gettext parameter included and this will be such a big problem down the road. I say, even if we don't start translating anything yet, we should ensure that our apps (mainly 9 apps) do actually include the needed support for translations down the road.

[valtam]

No problem with that, as long as it doesn't break current functionality.

[ralphy]

No problem with that, as long as it doesn't break current functionality.

Well, just as t is right now it is going to take a while to bring the code up to speed with locale support. I added a single Spanish translated line to Lite Tweak using locale support... here is the result:

https://unlockforus.com/downloads/linuxlite/locale.mp4

I plan to do at least one tweak per day but that's being optimistic; I really cant afford double my coffee intake dose yet again.  :P

[valtam]

Nice ralphy, can you give me a break down of how this is achieved?

[ralphy]

Let's see...

1- We define our locale support at the top of the script

Code:

...
# locale support
export LANG=C
export LANG=C.UTF-8
export TEXTDOMAINDIR=/usr/share/locale/
export TEXTDOMAIN=lite-tweaks
...

2- We use gettext on the lines that requires translation. E.g.:

Code:

...
FIREFOX() {
  echo """$(gettext "#⚫ Removing Firefox browser cache...")" && sleep 1 ; rm -rf "$HOME/.cache/mozilla/"
    if [ "${PIPESTATUS[0]}" -ne "0" ]; then echo """$(gettext "# Error...")" && sleep 1
      zenity --error --width="260" --height="80" --title="""$(gettext " Error")" --text="""$(gettext "\nAn error occurred while removing Firefox browser cache!")" 2>/dev/null; return
    fi
  echo """$(gettext "#✔ Firefox browser cache cleared.")" && sleep 1
...

3- Then we construct a .po file which is the one is used to create translations.

Code:

xgettext -j --copyright-holder= [email protected] --package-version= --language=Shell --from-code=UTF-8 --no-wrap -o lite-tweaks.po /usr/bin/lite-tweaks

4- Finally lite-tweaks.po is translated and exported from .po (human readable) to .mo (machine readable) and saved under /usr/share/locale as every other .mo file in the system.

[valtam]

Thanks :)

[ralphy]

You still don't find the Category column redundant?



By the way, there is gonna be additional changes made to the code because once we start translating there is no way we can follow the values a dialog outputs... For example, Lite Tweaks executes tasks based on the English Name selection and that's a problem once Lite Tweaks names are translated. Much more work to be done than that I first feared!  :-\

[ralphy]

I have updated lite-tweaks so that selections no longer depends on english language... locale support for lite-tweaks (no supper) is 60% completed at this point.

[valtam]

The results of the Poll I ran in the Feedback section produced a diverse range of opinions on the Category column topic. As such, there's no urgency to act. I could still veto that vote, but it's not that big of an issue.

We are still an entire Series away from addressing translations. It doesn't hurt to explore it now, but I'd prefer us to spend more time on current code an innovation.