[squeakland] Transalating Text in Etoys - followup from education committee question

[kharness at illinois.edu]

Hello,
Thanks to everyone for all the information about translations. I tried all the suggestions about highlighting text, changing languages in the Navbar and typing the same text in the new language. It did indeed switch back and forth. 

There are several problems though in the guides because of all the illustrations and screen prints:
1. the text no longer fits nicely, kerning helps
2. the examples such as screen prints of scripts are not changed and young/beginners will benefit from having the continuity from examples matching the informational text
3. some of the hand drawn objects such as the warning sign on page 1 of Halo:Menu need to be translated too and really won't benefit from switching on the fly from one language to another when using the quick guides. 

In the Spanish, Sdenka Salas Pilco translated every thing and the Spanish version is faithful to the spirit and content of the ones in English. If an object is called a bee, she renamed it "abeya". The Italian QG's lack tiles and menus in Italian but the informational text and drawings are ready when that part of the translations are done. I had a volunteer for the italian and accepted the help when it was offered.

If Bert's suggestion below leads to local images having customized quick guides, I am in favor of that. If people want the Spanish version couldn't they choose Spanish from a grid of download options ready to go without having to deselect English and change to Spanish? I don't know what is involved in that suggestion from the developer's point of view. But teachers never like to say, "do it exactly like this except. . .  ours is a green border not black, the name is wrong, the location is different etc, otherwise exactly the same."

I am meeting with someone in mid-March who will translate the QGs into Modern Greek. Is a Greek font available in Etoys? I found if I choose Greek-download additional fonts- that the script tiles changed okay. Now, how do I type Greek using the text from Supplies?

Your advice is very welcome!
Regards,
Kathleen 

---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:49:54 -0500
>From: "p.a.dreyfuss at excite.com" <p.a.dreyfuss at excite.com>  
>Subject: Re: [squeakland] Transalating Text in Etoys - followup from education 	committee question  
>To: kharness at illinois.edu, squeakland at squeakland.org, sthomas1 at gosargon.com
>
>   To be sure not to loose old text, make a change in
>   the text before changing the language,like putting a
>   space and removing it.
>   This ensure that the text will be saved. Of course
>   be sure that in the halo's menu of the text check
>   that translatable is checked.
>
>   With the Etoys images 3 or 4 ,you have to check
>   'duplicateControlandAltkeys' in the general
>   preference .to get these commands with alt/number
>   key.
>
>   Easiest is to select something in the text and then
>   to use editing handles of the text's halo by right
>   click on the text.
>
>   Regards
>   -----Original Message-----
>   From: "Steve Thomas" [sthomas1 at gosargon.com]
>   Date: 02/18/2010 02:45 PM
>   To: kharness at illinois.edu, "squeakland"
>   <squeakland at squeakland.org>
>   Subject: Re: [squeakland] Transalating Text in Etoys
>   - followup from education
>   committee question
>
>   Kathleen,
>
>   I looked at Berts comment
>   at: http://tracker.squeakland.org/browse/SQ-555
>
>   We need a way to look up guides in per-language
>   directories. Maybe by moving the QuickGuides to the
>   locale/<lang> directories?
>
>   So it seems for Quick Guides he would prefer a
>   separate copy in each directory.
>
>   The method I was discussing is more for making a
>   mulit-lingual Etoy project. Where the text changes
>   to the users native language.
>
>   To do that, you can use a Text Object (see list of
>   which text objects this works for below)
>   Enter your text in the default language (ex:
>   English)In the Sugar Flap to the right of the
>   Supplier Bin icon, click on "Choose Language" and
>   pick another language (ex: Spanish)Change the text
>   to SpanishNow when you switch languages the text
>   will change. As was pointed out on the education
>   committee meeting call you will still have problems
>   with different languages using different length
>   words for the same meaning. (ex:English - up ->
>   Spanish: arriba)  This problem is independent of
>   any translation technology, but it is good to be
>   aware of it.  One possible way to deal with this is
>   to change the Kerning.  To change Kerning select a
>   word inside a Text object then <Shift><Cmd><-> to
>   decrease the Kern and <Shift><Cmd><+> to increase
>   the kern. (NOTE: hit all three keys at the same
>   time, ie: Shift,Cmd and minus sign or plus sign).
>
>   List of Translatable Text Objects:
>   Text  - this is the one from the supplies binText
>   (border)
>
>   List of Non-Translatable Text Objects:
>   Enhanced TextScrolling TextTitle
>
>   FYI list of keyboard shortcuts while editing Text
>   (on Windows use <ctrl> on Macintosh <command>:
>   Text Emphasis 
>       (not available on all platforms) 
>   Cmd-1    10 point font 
>   Cmd-2    12 point font 
>   Cmd-3    18 point font 
>   Cmd-4    24 point font 
>   Cmd-5    36 point font 
>   Cmd-6    color, action-on-click, link to class
>   comment, link to method, url 
>           Brings up a menu.  To remove these
>   properties, select 
>           more than the active part and then use
>   command-0. 
>   Cmd-7    bold 
>   Cmd-8    italic 
>   Cmd-9    narrow (same as negative kern) 
>   Cmd-0    plain text (resets all emphasis) 
>   Cmd--    underlined (toggles it) 
>   Cmd-=    struck out (toggles it) 
>
>   Shift-Cmd--    (aka _) negative kern (letters 1
>   pixel closer) 
>   Shift-Cmd-+    positive kern (letters 1 pixel
>   larger spread) 
>
>     ------------------------------------------------
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