Proposal Description
An overview of the proposal
A plug-in for the Geeklog CMS which would enable users to submit translations. It should be lightweight, detachable and as independent of the actual CMS as possible. The detailed proposal is on the Summer Codding ideas webpage as this project was offered initially.
The need you believe it fulfills
It will provide and easy to use interface for submitting translations of the CMS or parts of the CMS. The whole system should be design in such a way that it makes the users want to submit proposals at the same time making it convenient for them.
Relevant experience
I have knowledge of PHP, SQL and JavaScript, as required on the ideas list. As well as jQuery and it’s plugins. I am in the process of familiarizing myself with the Geeklog API and the CMS itself.
Implementation
General description
My approach to this is to make a plug in for the CMS. The plug in would update the current user control panel with an additional tab where the user could turn the plugin on/off and in case it is on specify to and from which language he is able to translate. The user translations would be kept in a local database. The translation would not be sent to the remote(original) database every time the user enters a translation but they would rather have to press a button to send their translations. They could similar functions as the admin when packing the new translation to be able to use their translation immediately. The submission to the master database would also have to contain the Geeklog username of the user submitting the translation (if available) and the Geeklog version they use. More advanced users could use their files immediately and we could even make a tutorial on how to use those files. Or the best case scenario, the plug in would provide them with this option. I imagined however that different users would submit different translations to the main database. We could write a query for the database which would find the most submitted (similar looking) translation for a phrase, that could serve as translation confirmation and would make packing much easier. The admin when approving translations would have to see the original phrase, the proposed translations next to them the number of times a certain translation has been submitted.
Details about the looks and feels
The plugin would add sidebars to sites. The sidebars would host untranslated phrases from the site the user is currently viewing and input boxes for the user to submit their translation. The sidebar would also offer an “Show untranslated text from this site” button”-This would open the same site with all available phrases on the language to which the user translates the gaps would be filled with the original language. This approach would enable the user to have a context of the phrase he is translating. And finally the sidebar would host the “submit translation” button which would patch their translation and send it to a central database. This would be achieved through the Geeklog API so that it does not affect any of the original code. My idea of providing the user to see the context is to use Javascript, the script could find the text to be translated on a certain page and highlight it. I am not 100% sure this would work but I am sure it is worth a try. This would basically mimic what happens when you open search inside a text editor, not as in take the user to every occurrence of the phrase/word but rather as in highlighting the phrase/word on the page.
Gems
Finally to make contributing more appealing to users a gamification system would be put in place. The mentor and I would come up with a set of rules on when to grant gems and more importantly where the user’s gems would be displayed. I guess the best place would be on the users Geeklog profile but this might be too intrusive.
What I would start with is a gamification system similar to CodeCademy’s. Of course it would be adapted to this use case. But basically badges would be designed and awarded. Some of the awards could be: Finishing a logical unit (a unit being a complete array from the language files). Awards for every n submissions, a complete translation submission (as in the whole language file), continuous contribution (adding at least 1 translation every day, or every time the user logs in). A great thing would be to add an option for sharing gems on social networks.
A (very)rough timeline for the progress
May 28th-June 17th:
Publish the implementation plan-There is a good chance I could get great suggestions from the community. Familiarize with the Geeklog API.
Implement installation
- Write the php code for adding the database (Geeklog API)
- Use the Geeklog api to an additional tab
- Letting the user pick their FROM and TO language
- Testing if this works correctly
- Documenting the code
Handling the local saving of the translations
- Implementing the submission of translations. Making sure the plugin behaves correctly in consideration to versions, to user *specific text...
- Documenting the work.
Translation Interface
- Writing HTML and CSS for the looks and feels of the plugin (possibly several versions for the several templates Geeklog provides)
- Adding Javascript/jQuery to the interface for functionality stated above
Testing the looks - To make sure it will not mess up Geeklogs interface
- Testing the Javascript/jQuery functions for correct behavior
- Uploading screenshots to get community feedback (it is important that the community feels comfortable with this)
- Documenting the code
Translation Functionality
- Loading the interface with phrases.-This includes checking if a phrase already has a translation, finding the correct phrases from the current site etc.
- Testing the above
Submitting a translation
- Testing submissions
- Loading the “whole page” in the language to which the user is translating
- Testing the whole page layout
- Submitting all translations to the remote database
- Testing the remote submission
- Documenting the work done
Admin Functionality
- Creating an Admin interface
- Enabling the admin to extract translations
- Testing the admin part of the project
- Documenting it
Gamification
- Deciding upon when a gem is awarded
- Designing the gem tokens (img/png files)
- Refactoring the Functionality code so it keeps track on actions which lead to awarding gems
- Awarding gems to users
- Documenting the gamification
Additional
- Either writing code for the plugin which would enable the user to use his translation immediately
- Or writing a tutorial on how they can do it
Additional details
All the testing mentioned above will be implemented as unit tests if the framework supports it.
The timeline above is very rough, I would design a better one in collaboration with my mentor in the period prior to begin of coding. If possible I think it would be great if additional to me providing blogs on what has been done on the project my mentor and I could schedule some kind of weekly meeting so he can check on my progress, and give me guidance.
If by any chance I complete this project before GSoC ends I would gladly take on another. If by any chance I fail to finish it during the official GSoC time I will continue working on it past the GSoC deadline
Have you communicated with a potential mentor? If so, who?
Dirk Haun