How does article translation works?

[georgep]

Hello,

I tryed to test article translation from i.e. an existent English article to French following the steps:
- check the artile in English in the list
- Push the "Tranlsate" button (the fish)
- Choose "From English to French" in the list
- Push Translate again
- Result: Title Alias and Title is been automated translated in the selected language (French). The Intro Text and Main Text are empty!

Later is possible to edit the new created (French) translation and input a translatio in Intro Text and Main Text, but whitout seeing the original text.

Is that the way the function(s) for translating articles is intended to work?

How/where can I translate the menu texts (e.g. Home, Getting start, FAQs etc)?

Thank you!

[eliasan]

Hi,

Thank you for confirming a "problem" that have arisen during the last weeks.
You followed the right steps. It is not a problem of yours.

Elxis automatic translation is based on external resources.
Content translation fails because these resources have apparently changed their "rules".

[datahell]

I have n't yet checked the problem that have been reported by other users too. I will do it soon. One user reported me this problem before 2-3 days and finally the problem was that he has the /tmpr folder unwritable. /tmpr must be writable by php inorder the translator to work. Make sure /tmpr permissions are 777. If this worked for him should work for any site... ( /cache folder should also have permissions 777 )

[georgep]

Hi,

Thank you for confirming a "problem" that have arisen during the last weeks.
You followed the right steps. It is not a problem of yours.

Elxis automatic translation is based on external resources.
Content translation fails because these resources have apparently changed their "rules".

Ok, thank you, elisan  !

Further, another usability question/issue.

I consider the automat translation via external resources as an useful help. However, after obatining a growth translated version of a text, a human contribution is allmost always needed for correct the translated text (especially for a professional website with higher requirements on the content). Elxis offer this issue by mading ordinary text editing. The problem is still that a side-by-syde view is missing. This would help and make the process more eficiently.

I putted this subject here supposing a similar feature exists. Other way, I understand that will be a matter of "feature whishlist", which I also could expound in ritght place.

Thank you!

P.S. datahell, thank you! My tmpr was already 

[datahell]

The side-to-side check (translated - original text) is an old request that we had planned to do on Elxis 2008 but finally we did nt as we focused on more important things. I must notice that the translation is based on a free service provided by babelfish (altavista) so we do not guarantee that it will work forever as altavista may stop providing this service anytime. An alternative resource (and solution to this case) is to use google's online translation services.

At this time I check the current problem with babelfish and I noticed a change to the babelfish's format of the final translated text. I have almost solved the problem. Soon I will attach a patch that will solve this issue. Please wait.

[georgep]

The side-to-side check (translated - original text) is an old request that we had planned to do on Elxis 2008 but finally we did nt as we focused on more important things. I must notice that the translation is based on a free service provided by babelfish (altavista) so we do not guarantee that it will work forever as altavista may stop providing this service anytime. An alternative resource (and solution to this case) is to use google's online translation services.

At this time I check the current problem with babelfish and I noticed a change to the babelfish's format of the final translated text. I have almost solved the problem. Soon I will attach a patch that will solve this issue. Please wait.

Thanks, I am not hurry, I just test.

Ok, please note that an automtical translating cannot substitute (considering the technical level of NLP in our days) a human translation. However, it is a very useful feature for a site quick start but for the obtained level of quality would never be acceptable.  So "side-by-side" is still necessary in the process. It also possible to put the original text in a 2 column table in a text editor (MS Word) but with decreased productivity.

Thank you for a great product, anyway! I descovered elxis later and I liked your multilingual solution and the fact pay attention for problem. A feature which probably en English programming team use to consider as secondary interest.

[datahell]

It took me almost all day long to solve this issue. Unfortunately both Babelfish and Google have implement blocking mechanisms (javascript) that makes Elxis translator fail when tries to fetch a translated page as it is (keeping html format). I also did not found a working solution on the web. I solved this issue by using the text (only) translation services with a trick.

Here is the procedure I followed (step by step):
html page to be translated
-> remove html tags from html page -> creation of an untranslated text page
-> send text page for translation
-> get translated text page
-> re-group html tags to translated text page ->creation of a translated html page

The final result is not so good as the old one but has 2 advantages:
1. Translator can work on local sites too
2. You can switch between google and altavista.

I must notice that Elxis is the ONLY cms that has such a feature.