Hi everyone. Looking for the best ways of localization of Sketchup (Pro). Would like to translate into native language. Need your advice on how to organize the process. What software and websites you’d use? The task is to translate resources folder but use automation were possible and try to awoid hand work (except correction wrongly translated terms)
Different file types: json and some kind of json (.strings files). + html code inside folders.
How would you automate translation?
The localization files can be obtained from direct links
https://download.sketchup.com/SketchUpLanguage-2023-0-419-179-XX.msi
change XX to your language.
and extracted by means of cmd (in windows at least)
command: ‘msiexec /a SketchUpLanguage-2023-0-419-179-XX.msi’
The way i see it at the moment is using advanced text editor (sublime text for example) and using regular expressions. Would gladly accept any ideas (tools, scripts) to make the process semi-automated at least.
You can test results if copy the XX folder to C:\Program Files\SketchUp\SketchUp 202X\Resources (or the folder you installed application) and add ‘-lang XX’ to desktop link of Sketchup.
Share,who knows, direct links to earlier versions of Sketchup localization installers (windows)
If you use mac share your ideas too.
For context, this is a follow-up of this thread :
In the earlier topic I did ask a couple of colleagues about this. In the end they weren’t the right people to ask, and they suggested asking product managers.
@Mark do we have any process for getting new languages included in SketchUp? In this case the language would be Ukrainian, but if there is a general answer that would be good too.
Well since you contacted me in direct message asking why people didn’t answer your thread, I shall do it.
Have you considered asking someone from SU like Colin to see who’s in charge of that sort of things ? Or have you considered contacting your local reseller to see if they have direct contact to people at Trimble for your country ?
I picked these ideas from your previous thread, they were crowdsourced by the community.
beyond that… no idea.
Knowing how Trimble and Sketchup are hard to directly contact online, I would seriously consider paper mail to the HQ as a viable way to get the attention of the proper service. I know a proper letter would get more of my attention than an email.
No idea. I would probably use google. and Git some stuff. never completely understood how GitHub works, but I’m pretty sure I would have to Git stuff. Also, I would need to learn how to code. and certainly gitgood at it.
Well considering an automated translation has been mistranslating the extension menu in the mac french version for the past couple of years, I would advise not going the automation way. Get people to do it. They’ve been translating stuff for centuries.
And I also agree with that.
Several of my friends are currently working on the Ukrainian translation of Fusion360 and fully confirm this. Machine translation is not the right option for the job.
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My colleague and I tried machine translation for a couple of extensions and were promptly corrected by native speakers. I think the reason may be that computer jargon has co-opted many words that also have non-technical usages, and across languages we nerds have chosen words that aren’t the translations of the ordinary ones. A machine translator doesn’t understand that the context is computing.
Thanks for replies. I didn’t intent to do rely on machine translation. Every translated item SHOULD be revised by translator, no doubt. The question was how to reduce hand work (digging inside code).
Guess stackoverflow or similar sites can help better.
I just hoped to receive some clues from sketchup team because it’s their product. And they should know better how that works inside. Not asking to be part of translation team and get access to specific software or internal source code but looking the ways to do that part at client side.
Contacting local reseller lead to no responce at all.
It looked like you had found all the things you needed to change?
I found nothing. Nobody’s interested. My local reseller is no exception. Don’t wish to spend countless hours in digging code manually. Will try to find some solutions outside this comunity. Without guarantees.
P.S. localization packages (direct links) do not distinguish current Sketchup installation path (versions mismatch). So you have to copy paste manually (windows for sure). So the topic i started earlier should be renamed to “latest official localization packages mismatch version on windows os”.
P.S.S. not sure developers will fix it either cause nobody’s interested.
I don’t know how big is the market of SketchUp in Ukraine, I don’t want to touch some sensitive or political topics but I know that a lot of the population in Ukraine speak Russian, I understand it would be nice to have the program translated to your own mother tongue but probably for Trimble it´s not worth it to invest time and money doing this task that you’re trying to do if they know that people who use SketchUp in your country can use the Russian version, I´m just guessing, but knowing how companies work i can imagine that they want to keep their profits as high as possible even if the investment is something big.
Again I´m just guessing.
You change the localised strings file and then load that in via -lang
It would be nice to get clean template from all the project according to left variant (only developers know how it’s better for them to parse it). When translator is in fluent and does not spend efforts on searching terms he wants to be translated that increases translation quality greatly. Plus once translated by means of online services (lower server loads) translator will have ability to change some specific term at the whole project in just few clicks. Developers may add qt specific strings to that template too.
P.S. if developers cannot change development environment can they simply advise some specific instruments (software or services) to make translation less painful from translator perspective?
We’ve got translation into our native language. But there is a question about fremwork difference between 23 and 22 versions. Is there a way we can (do we really need) translate qt related files?
What do they stand for?
Btw. what’s the way to localize Layout?
Have never met so passive comunity in my life, honeslty. Can anybody send me a contact I can speak with? ANY information? Related topics? Anything.
I am pretty sure you are doing something that no one has done before or has any experience with. This is not a passive, but vibrant community with hundreds of posts per day. Unfortunately, not everyone here has experience with what you are up to!
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I enjoy reading what you write, but basically I don’t care if SketchUp is translated into your language, or even into my language.
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We managed to localize the latest version 23
used python script to parse .strings files, translated from couple languages and revised carefully.
The thing is we tried to do same thing with version 22 but found out that translation is burried somewhere deeper (suppose .dll files at windows machines). That’s why we ask to clarify (send to those who can) the differences between versions. Not a secret that latest version has many bugs and crashes often. We understand developers used some new framework to gain some speed and compatibility with ai tools. But it would be nice to have localization for more stable (previous) version for daily usage. If you can contact me with somebody who’s involved in translation process guess we could workout some solution.
yeah, I mean it’s a Sketchup community forum, not a software translation community forum, the overwhelming majority of people here has no idea what you’re doing.
And, I mean, it’s monday morning in europe (at least when you posted it), it’s barely monday morning in Boulder right now, many of us have life and jobs boyond this place 
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Nobody forces you to reply. Esp. monday morning. If you don’t have anything specific to suggest you may just watch and let others more competent to reply. I’m just asking for help to make sketchup better. If somebody can help, let them do. If somebody knows somebody who can help let me know please.