Details
Improvement
Critical
Description
The language packs other than the en_utf8 one have only a HEAD version (i.e. no STABLE branch) since 1.6. This causes major problems.
1) Some modules breaks in 1.6.x with the introduction of new strings. See bug MDL-6644.
2) Deleting legacy strings like $string['studentviewoff'] creates regressions in the interface, when using up-to-date language pack. "Some strings that were translated are now in english. What's happened?"
3) Not adding new strings and not removing legacy ones (for conserving backward compatibility issue of point 2 above) doesn't allow smooth development, nor correct testing on development version using other language packs.
I suggest that we think about a mecanism allowing to have a stable version of language packs along with a dev one, so that could be resolved elegantly.
Issue Links
| This issue blocks: | ||||
| MDL-5486 | time to split auth.php ? |
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| This issue will help resolve: | ||||
| MDL-18827 | German language pack - a lot of missing strings in older versions |
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| This issue will be resolved by: | ||||
| MDL-21690 | Central master database of all strings and their translations |
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| This issue is duplicated by: | ||||
| MDL-8014 | Language strings and different versions |
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| MDL-15252 | META Clean-up and reorganisation of language packs in Moodle 2.0 |
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| This issue has a non-specific relationship to: | ||||
| MDL-6166 | I must not change language strings |
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| MDL-6980 | teacherforum |
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| MDL-8409 | Translated strings may get lost by accident |
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| MDL-12605 | Time up navigation and warning message are incorrect |
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| MDL-11344 | Leave old $string['editlang'] in HEAD branch |
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Activity
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Yes Koen, in a perfect world, this would be OK. But in fact sometimes developers DO actually delete strings and files 
and this is a PITA to manage for translators.
Eg, every time I see a deleted string, I've now to add a comment in my fr_utf8 files to remember to delete them when 1.7 goes gold. And this is susceptible to lots of errors when I'll do it. Because I'll do it then, since the original (en_utf8) pack don't have these strings any more. So there's really a need here.
IMHO, it's not natural not to have branches on lang packs. As a side note, this is also matter of discussion for the contrib repository.
and this is a PITA to manage for translators.
Eg, every time I see a deleted string, I've now to add a comment in my fr_utf8 files to remember to delete them when 1.7 goes gold. And this is susceptible to lots of errors when I'll do it. Because I'll do it then, since the original (en_utf8) pack don't have these strings any more. So there's really a need here.
IMHO, it's not natural not to have branches on lang packs. As a side note, this is also matter of discussion for the contrib repository. Not much interest in this subject, according to the replies on my post on http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=56073
Anyway, another problematic update:
RCS file: /cvsroot/moodle/moodle/lang/en_utf8/help/quiz/requiresubnet.html,v
retrieving revision 1.1
retrieving revision 1.1.8.1
diff -u -d -r1.1 -r1.1.8.1
Anyway, another problematic update:
RCS file: /cvsroot/moodle/moodle/lang/en_utf8/help/quiz/requiresubnet.html,v
retrieving revision 1.1
retrieving revision 1.1.8.1
diff -u -d -r1.1 -r1.1.8.1 I've done a lot of cleanups on the lang packs in 1.7 and HEAD (resorted them and added missing strings).
More to go ... I'll clean up 1.6 too so we can do a better compare ... unfortunately I just now accidentally deleted the lang cleanup script which I just wrote. (
( Yet another issue related.
The following group.php strings were deleted from the HEAD lang pack, but are still needed in 18_STABLE.
This is very annoying. I have to add comments in lang files to remind me which strings are obsolete and in which version. And I don't know WHEN to delete these obsolete strings.
This is difficult to maintain for translators on the bleeding edge the development of Moodle
$string['cancel']
$string['editgroupingpermissions']
$string['errorinvalidgrouping']
$string['errornotingrouping']
$string['errornotingroupingedit']
$string['groupfor']
$string['return']
$string['save']
$string['showusersalreadyingroup']
$string['teachersgroupmark']
$string['teachersgroupview']
$string['teachersoverride']
$string['upgradeconfirm']
$string['viewallgroupsactivities']
$string['viewallgroupsmembers']
$string['viewowngroup']
$string['cancel']
$string['editgroupingpermissions']
$string['errorinvalidgrouping']
$string['errornotingrouping']
$string['errornotingroupingedit']
$string['groupfor']
$string['return']
$string['save']
$string['showusersalreadyingroup']
$string['teachersgroupmark']
$string['teachersgroupview']
$string['teachersoverride']
$string['upgradeconfirm']
$string['viewallgroupsactivities']
$string['viewallgroupsmembers']
$string['viewowngroup'] Nicolas is good at tracking down the issues caused by developers who forget about the rule not to delete or modify strings 
So he found quite a lot. But I believe that working branched with translators with not so much experience using CVS (and that is AFAIK the majority) will cause a lot more trouble.
So he found quite a lot. But I believe that working branched with translators with not so much experience using CVS (and that is AFAIK the majority) will cause a lot more trouble. Oh my Didn't pay enough attention to the file path. Sorry for the spam.
Didn't pay enough attention to the file path. Sorry for the spam. 
I did delete some strings recently, oops, I'll put them back.
Will think about the wider problem, too