Transformer Theme = How Compatible?

[DaoKakao]

Probably you right - the developers are concentrated on the "mainline" development, without "unnecessary" amenities, such as non-english support. The reason, as it seems to me, is that they have quite small dev and support team, whose resources barely enough to support existing theme in a consistent state.

In favor of them i can tell, that there are very few alternatives for that theme. I didn't tested the themeforest's Warehouse theme, but other themes in different stores are look ugly for me.

I have an idea: there is a theme in the themeforest, called "Autumn". Its author have finished working on it for a long time ago. Is it possible to contact him in order to make it kinda opensource for TB? Or can we take it as a base to develop something better?

[Occam]

I just checked it. Are you sure? Seems to me like a downgrade from a luxury car to an ordinary family car. Transformer theme sets standards by which other themes must have to be judged. And ... Autumn imho seems to be a more conventional lightweight.

[lesley]

Funny that you mention the Autumn theme. A week or so ago we actually made an offer on buying the source code of the theme to open source it and ship it with thirty bees, since development and support has stopped for the theme. In looking at it, it uses a custom grid, not bootstrap, which makes me a bit leery.

[DaoKakao]

I know it is quite poor of features. I just offered it as a start platform. But custom grid system ... it kills my idea in the root :)

[marci123]

@occam said in Transformer Theme = How Compatible?:

Yes, we have both probably experienced at Crowdin that the developers of the Transformer theme seem to be indifferent to what the translators suggest. At the beginning there was at least some feedback, but not lately. And I suppose with the other themes (e. g. Panda) it is the same. As a consequence, this means that all users with little knowledge of English or all those who need a different shop language than English should avoid Sunnytoo's themes, regardless of whether they are thirty bees compatible or not. The developers seem to concentrate 100% on the English-speaking market. Might be understandable from an economic point of view, but Europeans should probably look for other themes.

If buying on themeforest most themes come with English language files only. I would always look for code quality first. Dealing with technical problems is way more time consuming than translating a few strings. Don't know about transformer theme but panda theme is easy to handle regarding translations.

[Occam]

As for technical problems I'd agree, but for me this is not the only criterion. Many themes from Themeforest (incl. Panda and Transformer for Prestashop 1.5) aren't compliant with European law and require core changes, and often lack of translations proof evidence for this fact. But ... "a few translations"? You must be kidding! This theme like Panda brings along lots of own modules ( see my post above). This is a critical issue for people with no or poor skills in English, particularly due to the fact that source sometimes proves ... moderate.

[alwayspaws]

I created a Crowdin account to see the status of the translations and to vote up, if possible.

Russian suggestions were last approved 8-25-17.

German and Spanish both indicate 98% approved “but needs to be voted”.

I attempted to upvote but could not, even though I “joined” the “Transformer 4 PrestaShop theme” project. Further reading brought me to the explanation of voting:

https://crowdin.uservoice.com/forums/31787-collaborative-translation-tool/suggestions/5078059-explain-voting-and-approval-more-clearly

Possibly invite other German and Spanish speaking people to read and vote.

German - https://crowdin.com/project/transformer-4-prestashop-theme/de/activity

Spanish - https://crowdin.com/project/transformer-4-prestashop-theme/es-ES/activity

Jonny Li (sunnytoo) last activity for Transformer and Panda was 9-30-17:

https://crowdin.com/profile/JonnyLi/activity

He is working on languages along with integrating several other parts of his themes to work with thirty bees.

[Occam]

Strange, my downvotes did work, however. Speaking of the German translation, yes 98% translated, but many items poor and need improvement. And you got to consider that this is just a minor part of the Transformer theme which is provided at Crowdin for for translation. Seems to be the same for Russian and I guess for other languages too. Quite the same situation for the transaltions of Panda theme. And then there's this Chinese translator with moderate skills in German who makes it even worse. I've been engaged some times in translating there and in conforming the translations to thirty bees/PrestaShop wording. But as there's minimal if any feedback I signed off for Transformer. Waste time in my view.

[alwayspaws]

Would the Google translator help with this?

https://translate.google.com/manager/website/?hl=yi

Make your website instantly available in 100+ languages

Add the power of Google Translate’s automatic translations to your website! The free Website Translator plugin expands your global reach quickly and easily.

[marci123]

@occam said in Transformer Theme = How Compatible?:

But ... "a few translations"? You must be kidding! This theme like Panda brings along lots of own modules ( see my post above). This is a critical issue for people with no or poor skills in English, particularly due to the fact that source sometimes proves ... moderate.

If buying on themeforest at least basic English is a requirement. If somebody has only poor English skills an option could be to hire a student to translate the most important parts. English is a required subject at school today. Where there is a will, there is a way :-).

[Occam]

@alwayspaws Look, the first choice would be the Microsoft translator (standard on Crowdin), second Google, I mean, if you are looking for the best way to make your shop a laughing stock for foreign customers. :) Even a much more sophisticated tool like deepl.com mostly needs some fine tuning before the translation matches the source text.

[vzex]

Autumn theme versions look very nice! It would be great to have it ship with TB!

Can the custom grid be changed to bootstrap or too much work?

@lesley said in Transformer Theme = How Compatible?:

Funny that you mention the Autumn theme. A week or so ago we actually made an offer on buying the source code of the theme to open source it and ship it with thirty bees, since development and support has stopped for the theme. In looking at it, it uses a custom grid, not bootstrap, which makes me a bit leery.

[alwayspaws]

@Occam I’m out of ideas on translations. Was PS any good at it?

I just looked into DeepL and enjoyed the discussion on Twitter ‪@Linguee ‬

[DaoKakao]

No one of machine traslation services can't give quite adequate translation. I'll try to explain: in my native language there're three forms of plural. It is kind of sudoku puzzle unraveling when trying to translate from English to Russian. Same thing, i beleive, in German language - just remember 18 kinds of past tense :)

I have following suggestion/question to @mdekker and @lesley : is it possible to make a sub-project for crowdin TB translation, where community could store its own version of translations for Panda, Transformer and Warehouse themes?

[alwayspaws]

@DaoKakao

I have following suggestion/question to @mdekker and @lesley : is it possible to make a sub-project for crowdin TB translation, where community could store its own version of translations for Panda, Transformer and Warehouse themes?

I think that’s a good idea. Since I do not know other languages, I won’t be sharing the workload, so it’s best to put it to a vote from people who are willing to take on so much responsibility.

[Occam]

If you emphasize a consistent translation like I do it would make sense to follow this proposal, but from a business point of view I would decline. Crowdin is not free of charge. As project owner you would pay for helping other companies to increase their sales volume.

[alwayspaws]

@Occam Now that I know the facts, I’m not in favor of a Crowdin sub-project.

@DaoKakao Maybe we can have a sub forum right here at thirty bees.

Is it possible to transfer all the translations you two have worked on at Crowdin?

[DaoKakao]

@occam, @alwayspaws To tell the truth, i really don't know. this was just a proposal. I supposed, that the business-related stuff is better to address for TB owners/maintainers, and that's why i've mentioned @mdekker and @lesley. If they decide, that this is burdensome - ok, let's find something opensource/free-of-charge. For instance, i can supply part of my dedicated server for that purpose. But then we should decide what and how to deploy on it.

[DaoKakao]

@alwayspaws said in Transformer Theme = How Compatible?:

Is it possible to transfer all the translations you two have worked on at Crowdin

The fun is that most of my translation for 'transformer' theme isn't on the Crowdin. Crowdin stores only transformer v4 translation, which is suitable only for PS 1.7, and yet is incomplete.

My translation is related for PS 1.6, what means it suitability for TB as well. Not a long time ago i've thought to wipe it out from my pc - until found out the TB :)

UPD: Why not to make our effort on the TB's documentation project, or even better on the github?

[Occam]

@alwayspaws said in Transformer Theme = How Compatible?:

Is it possible to transfer all the translations you two have worked on at Crowdin?

Basically yes! The easiest way would be to export the language of thirty bees as gzip. Then this could be uploaded to a subforum translations which is still to be set up.

My current translations are for Transformer 2x. which means suitable for Prestashop 1.5x. However, there are just some new modules in Release 3 (for thirty bees or PS 1.6) and the items shouldn't have changed, so that most of the translation items match the previous release.

And btw you can reduce the translation effort for the theme by just copying the language of the standard theme to the Transformer theme in your back office: Localizations -> Translations --> [last section] Copy Just a few mouse clicks, and average 60% is translated.

Besides, I fully agree with @DaoKakao: only a very small fraction of the translation items of Transformer 4 (for PS 1.7) are provided on Crowdin by SunnyToo.

[DaoKakao]

What will we do? Github? Subforum? TB's documentation project? Also i have my own seafile cloud storage deployed. Could it be suitable for that purpose?

[lesley]

Hmm, I think it might be best to contact him about being able to contribute on his crowdin. Its really a tough thing, crowdin can get expensive for something like a theme that is closed source and his bill could easily be $90 a month or more.

[alwayspaws]

I just contacted him. Thank you, Lesley.

[DaoKakao]

@lesley This is exactly why the idea of 'parallel' translation has born - it is very difficult to communicate the theme's author (seems he hasn't enough time for everything). And i've found, that some string resources are hardcoded as a static array members, so they even couldn't be translated without code refactoring

[alwayspaws]

@daokakao Don’t delete your hard work. Always keep it!