AbiWord Windows builds and L10n workflow

Dear AbiWord devs,

bafna_p ran into an issue while working on a Windows build. He got a
complaint that the

/user/wp/strings/

folder was missing. This apparently traces back to a modification of
the MAKEFILE (or some such) made by Simon that causes the .strings
files to be created on fly during the make. This is great for *nix,
but it does NOT address the needs of the Windows build process.

As a temporary workaround to allow Windows build process to move
forward, I have re-generated all of the .strings using the PO files
committed to SVN, by using the "abi-backport-all.sh" script to
generate them and them moved them to /user/wp/strings/ and then
committed that folder (and all the .strings files) to SVN.

Hopefully this allows Windows building to proceed in the short term,
but it raises a few questions.

1) Will the presence of /user/wp/strings/ cause any problems for *nix
builds? If yes, is this acceptable in the short term to get a Windows
build out the door?

2) What is the best approach ot solving this issue for the long term
and addressing the needs of both *nix and Windows builders? The *nix
make changes that allow only the PO files to be committed are really
helpful in terms of streamlining the L10n commit process and allowing
direct commits from lang admins via Pootle.

There would seem to be several approaches to this, depending in part
of whether it is okay to have the /user/wp/strings/ folder around.

a) Slightly modify the relatively simple "abi-backport-all.sh" script
so that after it makes it's loop through all of the PO files, it goes
through a loop to move them from /po/ to /user/wp/strings/. Make
this a run as a cron job to refresh the .strings files nightly
(whether they need it or not).

b) Try to make a similar modification as that made for *nix makes
that addresses Windows builds (in msvc?) so tha .strings files are
created on the fly during the build.

c) Try to capture the commit message from the lang admin on the Pootle
server and have it generate teh .strings files one at a time and
commit them along with the PO file. This might be a little trickier.

Looking forward to some feedback on this as I am not an expert on the
AbiWord build process, but I am hopeful that there is a low impact
solution that can be developed.

Warmest Regards,

cjl
Sugar Labs Translation team Coordinator
Received on Mon Jun 25 06:28:51 2012