How To Assist With Translating The MOO

1. Get admin privs. Come on #lojban and ask rlpowell.
   1. Please note that if you do anything with the admin user (such as move around the MOO) it affects everyone who uses that user. So try to avoid that sort of thing. If you must do something jarring to test something, please put the admin back the way you found it when you're done.
2. Find a message you want to translate.
3. Run "showall object" on the object with the message. Look for the message in the output. If it's not in a .msg field, you'd probably best stop right there and send mail to Robin Powell with what you were trying to do.
4. Having found the .msg field in question in the "showall" output, look for a "*" in the line with the .msg field name in it. If there is one (and there almost certainly will be), that field is inherited. If not, something wierd is going on, and you'd probably best stop right there and send mail to Robin Powell with what you were trying to do.
5. So, now we need to figure out which object originally defined that field. There are a couple of ways to do this; the fastest one is '!find /usr/lib/mooix -type f | xargs grep "[the message]"'. You can also do the following:
   1. Find the parent line in "showall".
   2. Replace "/var" with "/usr". showall that.
   3. Repeat until there is no "*" in the showall line for the field you're wanting to translate.
6. So you now have the /usr/lib/mooix path of an object. YOU MUST change /usr to /var; any edits in /usr will be destroyed. So you want to do something like: "edit mooix:/var/lib/mooix/concrete/thing put_under.msg". Again, if you edit anything under mooix:/usr, your changes will be lost.

How To Do The Actual Translating

I'm using psuedo-xml tags to do the translation work with. So let's say you "edit the nice wooden desk's name". You'll see something like:

nice wooden desk

You want to turn this in to:

<lang code="en">nice wooden desk</lang><lang code="jbo">melbi mudri jubme</lang>

Feel free to translate into more than just English and Lojban, but there need to be language objects for any other languages you want to add, so mail Robin Powell if you're going to do that sort of thing.

-Robin

When you're in the shell around the moo, I have a perl script (~m-labinx/bin/untranslated) that gives a list of messages that still need to be translated. Additonally, when you're editing a description as admin, you'll be using vim (by default), and you can use the ":LA" command to insert some of the boilerplate on the current line.

-la binxo

Translation Conventions

When translating a name, leave the article out, as Robin indicated above. When translating messages, always remember to include .i at the start of the sentence, and if your x1 uses a variable, use cu just to be safe. (ie ".i $this cu broda" instead of ".i $this broda", since $this might be replaced with "le dakfu" or something, and without a cu, you have no selbri in this case.)

- Ted

Code Changes

(Copied from IRC)

<rlpowell> Yeah, code changes don't belove in /var.
<rlpowell> So the way it works is that the live moo runs out of /var/lib/mooix, and the distributed code is all in /usr/lib/mooix
<rlpowell> Every object in /var has a parent in /usr, and every parent in /usr has a parent in /var.
<rlpowell> Erm, every *system* object, rather.
<rlpowell> So your avatar's parent is in /var, and its parent is in /usr, and its parent is in /var, 
       and so on until you get to /usr/lib/mooix/concrete/thing, where it stops.
<rlpowell> The *reason* is that it allows one to update the the code in /usr as much as you want 
       *without* fucknig with local changes but still having the changes take effect.
<Eimi> So changes in /usr/ take effect, unless we've already overridden it in /var/
<Eimi> we do our local translations in /var, /usr gets the code changes and new messages
     that will eventually get folded back into the distribution
<rlpowell> Right.
<rlpowell> /usr is *completely* destroyed every time I compile.
<rlpowell> So never ever ever change things in /usr.
<rlpowell> Test your code changes in /var and then e-mail me with what you changed so I can roll it into the tree.

Translating Verbs (i.e. command names)

You'll need to be an admin for this.

1. Find something you'd like to be able to do. Find the original .cmd file for it.
2. Copy the entire text of the .cmd file.
3. Edit a file named <brivla>.cmd.jbo on the same object as the original .cmd file (except in the /var tree, which should happen by default anyways). It technically doesn't have to be named .jbo, but it simplifies things.
4. Replace "verb" with "brivla".
5. Make aliases for the various parts of speech, such as "direct_object=object2", which says that the object in the 2nd sumti place will be called the direct object when the verb is run. Doing this aliasing means most verbs don't actually need to be touched at all.
6. Unless you have made, or are planning on making, a special Lojban-only verb, make sure that the line ends with the verb to use, such as ": say".

Example

The example is mooix:concrete/thing put.cmd

# "put down object / put object down"
verb, do_preposition(down), direct_object(this)(touchable)(tomove) : put_in
# "put object in object"
verb, direct_object(touchable)(tomove), io_preposition(set@in_prepositions), indirect_object(this)(touchable)(open) : put_in
# "put object on object"
verb, direct_object(touchable)(tomove), io_preposition(set@on_prepositions), indirect_object(this)(touchable) : put_on
# "put object under object"
verb, direct_object(touchable)(tomove), io_preposition(set@under_prepositions), indirect_object(this)(touchable) : put_under
# "put object behind object"
verb, direct_object(touchable)(tomove), io_preposition(set@behind_prepositions), indirect_object(this)(touchable) : put_under

The first one can simply be dropped.

The rest become:

## "prepositional" forms
# "punji le bolci le nenri be le jubme"
brivla, direct_object=object2(touchable)(tomove), io_preposition=preposition3(set@in_prepositions), indirect_object=object3(this)(touchable)(open) : put_in
# "punji le bolci le cpana be le jubme"
brivla, direct_object=object2(touchable)(tomove), io_preposition=preposition3(set@on_prepositions), indirect_object=object3(this)(touchable) : put_on
# "punji le bolci le cnita be le jubme"
brivla, direct_object=object2(touchable)(tomove), io_preposition=preposition3(set@under_prepositions), indirect_object=object3(this)(touchable) : put_under
# "punji le bolci le trixe be le jubme"
brivla, direct_object=object2(touchable)(tomove), io_preposition=preposition3(set@behind_prepositions), indirect_object=object3(this)(touchable) : put_behind

In addition, Lojban has the non-prepositional use of "punji", like so:

## Regular bridi forms
# "punji le bolci le jubmi"
brivla, direct_object=object2(touchable)(tomove), indirect_object=object3(this)(touchable) : put_on

Lojban .cmd Elements

objectN

Phrases that the moo has matched with an available object, such as "le bolci" or "le bolci poi nenri le tanxe". N is the sumti position of the object, so the first object after the brivla will be object2.

prepositionN

This is a bit of a hack; these are "prepositional" phrases, by which I mean things like "le cnita be". They are associated with and have the same N as the object they modify.

lojban_quoteN

Lojban quotes (i.e. quotes using lu...li'u; no actual Lojban correctness is enforced in the quotes). Numbered along with objects.

non_lojban_quoteN

Non-Lojban quotes, which currently only use "..." but should some day use zoi properly. Numbered along with objects.

Special case: things attached to an object with po/pe/etc are numbered the same as the object, so {galfi "name" po le lojbo cipra pilno} ends up with an object1 and a non_lojban_quote1.

Using The Test Parser

To use the test parser, use "set my parser to mooix:/var/lib/mooix/mixin/test_parser". You must log out and back in for any parser changes to take effect. If "quit" stops working, use ctrl-d.

Note that the test parser should now be the default.

Please note that in the new parser, your language setting is used for both input and output.

Having done so, to change your language from English to Lobjan:

• language "Lojban"

To change your language from Lojban to English:

• bangu fa "gliban"

Theoretical Capabilities

It seems to me that there should be a place to record what a Lojban parser should be able to do, particularily as compared to what the English parser can already do.

So, please record such observations at the Lojban MOO Multilingual Parser Theoretical Capabilities page.