Re: finished arabic translation of web stylesheets homepage

Hello Bert,

we 've reworked the entire site now, most of the points you mentioned in 
your mail should be fixed. Here the shortcuts:

http://www.webstyles.ae.org/Style/index.html
http://www.webstyles.ae.org/Style/CSS/index.html
http://www.webstyles.ae.org/Style/CSS/learning.html
http://www.webstyles.ae.org/Style/CSS/Buttons/index.html
http://www.webstyles.ae.org/Style/CSS/Buttons/Menu/index.html

Hopefully another arabic-speaking reader of this list can check this 
translation. I'm unsure with some "english/arabic" mixed paragraphs (we 
worked mostly with <span dir="ltr"> if there was no surrounding tag), 
but as I already said, the translator is egyptian...and I think he knows 
what looks "good" or "bad". But a second opinion would be great.

Regards, Axel

Bert Bos schrieb:
> Hello Axel,
>
> On Monday 24 August 2009, Axel Friedrich wrote:
>   
>> Dear list, dear Coralie, dear Bert,
>>
>> the arabic translation is ready:
>>
>> original: http://www.w3.org/Style/
>> translated document: http://www.webstyles.ae.org/Style/index.html
>>     
>
> It may be that certain English parts in the document need to be enclosed 
> in
>     <span dir=ltr>...</span>
>
> I've found two cases:
>
> The final slash of the URL "http://www.w3.org/Style/" is shown on the 
> left instead of on the right, because it is followed by Arabic letters. 
> Writing it as 
>
>     <span dir=ltr>http://www.w3.org/Style/</span>
>
> seems to help. (Putting the dir=ltr on the enclosing A element also 
> works.)
>
> A similar problem seems to occur with the parentheses around "(Abstract 
> Programming Interface)" which could be written as
>
>     <span dir=ltr>(Abstract Programming Interface)</span>
>
> But maybe in that case the problem is different. It looks as if the 
> translator forgot to translate some words in that sentence.
>
> I also wonder why there are BR tags in the translation that are not in 
> the original. Do you know why that is? If the translator prefers an 
> empty line between paragraphs instead of an indented first line, I can 
> easily add that to the style sheet instead.
>
> And something strange happened with the link to 
> news:comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets
> The prefix "news:" disappeared and the dots turned into "¬"
>
> It should be this:
>
>     <a dir=ltr
>     href="news:comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets">
>     comp.&shy;infosystems.&shy;www.&shy;authoring.&shy;stylesheets</a>.
>
>   
>> original: http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/
>> translated document: http://www.webstyles.ae.org/Style/CSS/index.html
>>     
>
> There are some broken links that you can't do much about, but there are 
> three that are errors in the translation:
>
>   bert@w3.org        -> mailto:bert@w3.org
>   www-style@w3.org   -> http://www.w3.org/Mail/Lists.html#www-style
>   daniel@glazman.org -> (there should be no link)
>
>   
>> original: http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/learning
>> translated document:
>> http://www.webstyles.ae.org/Style/CSS/learning.html
>>     
>
> Not everything seems to have been translated:
>
> 1) The phrase "chapter 2 of Lie & Bos or Dave Raggett’s intro to CSS" 
> was not translated. Maybe the translator didn't understand the 
> original? Here is the full sentence in different words. Maybe this is 
> easier to translate:
>
>     For a quick introduction to CSS, try the
>     <a href="http://www.w3.org/Style/LieBos2e/enter/">
>     second chapter</a>
>     of the
>     <a href="http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/learning.html#LieBos1999">
>     book by Lie and Bos,</a>
>     or try the
>     <a href="http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/Style">
>     introduction to CSS by Dave Raggett.</a>
>
> 2) The section with links to non-English articles wasn't translated 
> either. That is a not a big deal, but in principle, the following three 
> things can be translated in that section:
>
> a) all the words "by"
> b) all the parts in parentheses
> c) all the English names of languages (after the "/" in the DT elements)
>
> I've tried to mark-up the original to make it clear what can be 
> translated and what should remain unchanged. The parts that should 
> remain unchanged have either a class=notranslate or a lang= attribute. 
> (I haven't marked all people's names, but of course they cannot be 
> translated either.)
>
> There are also some errors in URLs:
>
>   cssdesign@itlists.org -> http://itlists.org/mailman/listinfo/cssdesign
>   griffon@canit.se      -> mailto:griffon@canit.se
>
>   
>> original: http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/Buttons
>> translated document:
>> http://www.webstyles.ae.org/Style/CSS/Buttons/index.html
>>     
>
> The final parenthesis of "(W3C)" is reversed, because it is followed by 
> Arabic letters. Maybe the fix is a SPAN like this: 
>
>     <span dir=ltr><a href="http://www.w3.org/">World Wide Web
>     Consortium</a> (W3C)</span>
>
> but I'm not sure what an Arabic reader would expect exactly. Maybe a 
> better solution is to rephrase the sentence and avoid the parentheses 
> altogether, or put an Arabic word between "World Wide Web Consortium" 
> and "W3C," maybe the Arabic equivalent of "or" or "also known as."
>
> Also, the structure of the document seems to have changed. Where the 
> original had LI elements, the translation has BR and explicit bullet 
> characters. Is that because of a problem with the style sheet? In that 
> case I'd like to fix the style sheet.
>
>   
>> original: http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/Buttons/Menu
>> translated document:
>> http://www.webstyles.ae.org/Style/CSS/Buttons/Menu/index.html
>>     
>
> The link back to the original points to 
> http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/Buttons instead of 
> http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/Buttons/Menu
>
> There is an error in the style part: #white should be #fff
>
> (Not your fault. That error has always been there, since twelve(!) years 
> ago. The style rule is not used anywhere, so we didn't notice; and we 
> apparently never validated the page either...)
>
> Like the Buttons page, this one has many BR tags where the original has 
> LI. Do you know why?
>
>   
>> I linked all CSS files directly from w3.org, so you can change the
>> reading direction any time. But, as the work was done by an egypt
>> webmaster, I suppose there is nothing wrong with the current style.
>>     
>
>
>
> Bert
>