MetaBrainz project translation has officially moved from Transifex to Weblate! This is a big step forward, with improvements like single sign-on using your MusicBrainz account, proper attribution to translators, unified handling of glossaries, custom checks for MusicBrainz variable syntax, better integration with our development workflow, and supporting a libre software organization. We also tidied up the documentation and the forums about translation and more generally about internationalization of all aspects of MetaBrainz.
Your central information page for all MetaBrainz internationalization is now: https://wiki.musicbrainz.org/Internationalization
Your new translation platform is (MusicBrainz login required):
https://translations.metabrainz.org/
This is also a great opportunity to give translating a go if you’ve never done it before. In the second half of this blog post we will walk you through getting started. Don’t worry, you don’t need to be an expert translator!
The shift to Weblate
Many users complained about having to create a Transifex account to be able to translate our projects. And developers weren’t satisfied with the unreliable attributions to translators either. We have been talking about alternatives since 2017, and the decision to move to Weblate was made in 2021.
The Weblate team implemented new email privacy settings, while outsidecontext and yvanzo implemented MusicBrainz single sign-on and MusicBrainz custom checks. We also reviewed the Weblate legal terms and signed a standard Data Processing Agreement to delegate the hosting and maintenance of our dedicated instance of Weblate to them. outsidecontext and yvanzo moved the data from Transifex (which is currently frozen) to Weblate. Early testers chaban, kellnerd, mfmeulenbelt, RandomMushroom128, rdswift, salo.rock and zer0bitz joined gradually, and it started to be used by MusicBrainz projects in August 2023. A lot of cleanup and improvements to checks, glossaries, source strings, string context have been achieved to make translation more feasible.
There are related changes on other platforms as well. Internationalization status and translator landing pages have been added to the wiki. The community forums received a new Internationalization category (for discussing about our Weblate instance and coordinating language-specific/cross-projects translation), and the Multilingual plugin (enabling language tags and translated category titles).
Getting started with translations
Are you fluent in a non-English language? This is a great time to jump in and try it out. Don’t worry, you don’t have to be an expert translator.
We’ve created a video walk-through to get you started. If you’d rather read a text summary, keep scrolling!
Text Walkthrough
Abridged (believe it or not) from the video.
- Logging into Weblate: Navigate to translations.metabrainz.org, and you will automatically (wowee!) be logged in using your MetaBrainz/MusicBrainz account.
- Profile settings: Click on your profile name, at the top right, and then Settings. We are only covering the most important bits here, but feel free to click about and explore the rest if you feel like it.
- Settings > Languages: Set the Interface Language dropdown to the language you would like Weblate’s text and menu’s to display in.
The Translated languages selection is important – this is the main language you want to translate into. For instance, if you want to help translate MusicBrainz into German, click on German (de). Start with just one here, even if you are fluent in more.
Secondary Languages is optional. Languages you select here will be shown in various context panels while translating. For instance, if you are translating into German (de) you may find it useful to be able to see, at a glance, how people have translated the same string in Dutch.
Click Save to apply your changes. - Settings > Preferences & Notifications: You can leave these to start with, but later on you may choose to set the default translation view to Zen mode in Preferences, and the Notifications panel has a plethora of options available if you decide to dig in.
- Settings > Account: This has two important things to note.
Firstly, your Username is automatically set from your MetaBrainz account, but if your MetaBrainz account name changes it will not automatically update here. You can change it manually any time.
Secondly, your Full name is automatically set from your username, and will be used for crediting you publicly. You can change it manually any time too.
Last, the Commit e-mail has a anonymous default option available (this one – [username]@users.noreply.translations.metabrainz.org). It’s important to note that if you decide to use the email associated with your account instead, that any translation commits you make will make that email address public, forever. - Finding information and help: When you are in a project, like MusicBrainz, and you click the Info tab, there is a link to the relevant Internationalization wiki page. These wiki pages, in combination with the Internationalization forum category, is your go-to location for questions and help with translation, and is where you can work together with other translators, to ensure translation is consistent, and to share tools, links and tips. For help using the translation platform you can visit the Weblate user docs.
- Navigating to the part/s you want to translate: You can find a project to translate via the Project item in the top menu, and then Browse all Projects. Select the ‘Project’ you would like to edit, from the list. Note that some projects do not have Weblate integrated yet, even if they are displayed here. MusicBrainz or MusicBrainz Picard are good starting points. On the next page, select a ‘Component’ from the list.
Note: If you have left the default notification settings, projects that you edit will automatically be added to your dashboard for quicker access. - The translation page: After selecting a ‘Component’ you can go ahead and click the big Translate button at the top right. Elements of note:
– The source string at top left
– A field underneath for your translation
– The Glossary at the top right, displaying relevant MeB terms
– String information under the glossary, which contains technical information
Underneath your translation field there are a number of useful tabs:
– Nearby strings are similar strings, and their translations
– Comments allow you to discuss translations with translators, or suggest changes to the source string
– Automatic suggestions are translations generated by Weblate’s translation tool. Use the Clone to translation button to use it as a basis for your translation
– Other languages shows the selected string’s translations in other languages
– History shows the ‘edit’ history (you can view your edit history via your profile, in the Recent changes tab) - Translating: Use the Skip button to find a string you would like to translate. Once you have found a string to translate, you can enter your translation into the field. Don’t be afraid to use the various tools and ‘clone’ buttons to help you get started, and refer to the glossary and similar strings to keep translations consistent.
Note: Don’t translate code snippets in strings, usually highlighted in a blue-grey. Changing these can cause display or server errors. - Saving your translation: Depending on your confidence in your translation, you have a number of different options. If you are unsure, you can check the ’Needs editing’ checkbox, which will let other editors know it still needs looking at (this checkbox is also automatically checked, for every language, if the source string changes).
– Save and continue will save your translation, and move to the next string
– Save and stay will save your translation, and stay on this page
– Suggest will suggest your translation, and it will only be applied after you or another translator saves it. Suggest can also be used to suggest improvements to existing translations, without overwriting them. - 🎉 celebrate 🎉
- Checks: These are similar to Reports in MusicBrainz, automated checks for things that may need fixing, and can be a good starting point. Find them via the Checks dropdown, in the top menu.
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