Original author(s) Operating system | Development status Active | |
Developer(s) Niklas Laxström, Siebrand Mazeland Initial release July 2006 (alpha: 2005) Stable release Continuous development / Monthly MLEB release | ||
translatewiki.net is a web-based translation platform, powered by the Translate extension for MediaWiki, which makes MediaWiki a powerful tool for translating all kinds of text.
Contents
It is currently the 22nd largest wiki in the world by number of pages, having about 14,000 translators for over 120,000 pages from over 30 projects including MediaWiki, OpenStreetMap, Mifos, Encyclopedia of Life and MantisBT.
Features
The main characteristic of translatewiki.net and its engine, the Translate extension, is it being a wiki, so contribution is made easy to any web user, with a low or no barrier to entry. Quality is pursued by letting translators focus on what they're best at — translation — freeing them from all the other burdens.
Translations are immediately available to the translator and is smoothly synchronised between a revision control system and translatable wiki pages without translator intervention. In the best case, MediaWiki on Wikimedia projects, new localisations reach live sites within a day (sometimes called "continuous translation" or "continuous localization").
The translation editor provides various features for machine-assisted translation, such as
translatewiki.net is also a Semantic MediaWiki, part of the semantic web.
History
translatewiki.net was made available by Niklas Laxström as localisation platform for all languages of MediaWiki around June 2006, when it was named Betawiki.
Besides translation, it was developed with the characteristics of an integrated development environment for MediaWiki (Nukawiki in 2005), with a focus on improvement of internationalisation features.
At the end of 2007 Siebrand Mazeland joined the management of the website, which was moved to the current domain translatewiki
In April 2008, it already supported over 100 languages for MediaWiki and 200 of its extensions, "making it one of the most translated software projects ever", as well as FreeCol. Since then, while being an independent volunteer project, it has been recognised as a major player in the global success of MediaWiki and the Wikimedia projects powered by it, like Wikipedia, in over 280 languages.
In 2009 it was improved by a Google Summer of Code project by Niklas Laxström. In 2011 proofreading features were introduced. In 2012, its translation memory engine expanded to all Wikimedia projects using Translate.
In 2013, the Translate platform underwent a major revamp through the "Translate User eXperience" project, or "TUX", including "changes in navigation, editor look and feel, translation area, filters, search, and color & style".
Supported formats
Some of the natively supported formats follow. More can be added with some customisation.