Help talk:Extension:Translate/Page translation example

This way of translating content makes the page output extremely verbose see for example https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Extension:Math&action=edit It's hard to read and to edit and it reduces the entropy significantly. This reverts the effort of the visual editor to keep the source readable. I think in principal there is no need to store all the translate tags and XML comments in the wikitext. Or is the general strategy to use the visual editor exclusively for editing? In that case I'd vote for making the new wikitext identical to docx, so that it can be edited with Microsoft Word if everything else crashes;-) --Physikerwelt (talk) 18:15, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
 * This comment is not related to the tutorial at all, is it? It seems a comment about Translate syntax.
 * Your point seems to be that the Translate marking should be possible in VisualEditor: that's 53974, which is blocked on 48891. --Nemo 18:25, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

"This page contains changes which are not marked for translation."
Hello. In the tutorial, it is written that After saving the page, you will see a link at the top of the page saying "Mark this page for translation" (or "This page contains changes which are not marked for translation." if you are not a translation administrator). Click on that link. I guess that the sentence "Click on that link" refers to the link "Mark this page for translation"? I tried to click on the two links included in the sentence "This page contains changes which are not marked for translation." and none of them lead me to the page shown in the picture. Best, Wikini (talk) 08:08, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
 * As step 1 says, the tutorial assumes you have rights configured. If you need to mark pages for translation, you need the pagetranslation permission (on this wiki, it's the "Translation administrators" group). --Nemo 14:49, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok, thank you, I didn't got it. I guess this is included in the word "configured" of the first sentence (namely "This tutorial assumes that the Translate extension is already installed and configured")? My following question is: where to apply to be in the "Translation administrators" group? Best, Wikini (talk) 12:26, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah sorry, the beginning could be clearer; the expected audience is only specified in incoming links but not on the page itself, it seems. Will see if I can fix. For what wiki do you want translationadmin flag? On this wiki it's handled at Project:Requests, on other wikis ask the bureaucrats. --Nemo 14:34, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Wikini (talk) 15:18, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

How to edit a page with translation units on it
Please define what, precisely, a translation unit is. Supposedly we can rearrange and edit every single character around there delimiters whatever they are. "Translate tags" have the opening and closing tag, but what is this "translation unit" thing? It is is not clear. Is it to the left or the right of the marker? How does a translation unit relate to a translate tag, if at all? Like the description of tables and sections, it has always been true that an editor needs to know how to treat every single character of the wikitext.

What about tables? What about sections? And what about other markup? These things can be previewed, and corrected. Please tell me how to interpret the error page I get when I ruin that environment so badly I can't save my edits.

And please, there's no link from the effectively de-wikified, elite-priveleged only, pages to the help documentation for how to edit them. Cpiral (talk) 02:06, 10 September 2015 (UTC)


 * The glossary explains what a translation unit is. The reference manual goes into detail on how translation units are identified and more.
 * Generally, nothing goes bad if the translation administrator marked the page reasonably: you shouldn't bother to touch the tags. Can you link the page you were editing and tell what you were trying to do?
 * As for the help links, it would be the first extension adding custom help for itself on action=edit; please file the feature request for broader consideration. --Nemo 05:56, 10 September 2015 (UTC)


 * At Help:Search it's giving me "unbalanced translate tag" and showing me the entire page. But I'm only working on the insource: section.  I believe the translations administrator should remove translations from that page until it is stable.  For example, currently I'm trying to remove a bug that was documented as a feature. But the reason Help:Search is unstable is not only because of that syntax, but also because of the operators that are being added.  And CirrusSearch is in beta, and the Search documentation is nowhere to be found, and it needs lots of work.  Currently there are 130 translations units getting in the way.  So either document how to edit pages with translations on them, and leave out the cruft of administration (I've read some of your links, and learned a few things, but TO NO AVAIL), or reduce the number of units, or remove translations temporarily.  Thanks. Cpiral (talk) 06:40, 11 September 2015 (UTC)


 * There is no "insource" at Help:Search: I don't understand what you are talking about. The report you linked suggests you might be talking of Help:CirrusSearch. Please paste the text you are trying to save and I'll tell you what's the issue. --Nemo 06:57, 11 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I changed the formerly-off redirect Help:search to Help:cirrussearch, where it belongs per Special:version. Cpiral (talk) 01:45, 12 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I did the paste-bin. Where will you answer? Cpiral (talk) 06:29, 12 September 2015 (UTC)


 * http://p.defau.lt/?rssqpVbLN8HejTu_r7DZ0w Cpiral (talk) 05:32, 13 September 2015 (UTC)


 * http://p.defau.lt/?rssqpVbLN8HejTu_r7DZ0w Yes.  It's Help:CirrusSearch.


 * http://p.defau.lt/?rssqpVbLN8HejTu_r7DZ0w Glad to see you're back contributing today.  Please follow up with your offer to help me troubleshoot this translations problem that has blocked my edit for seven days now.  Thanks.


 * Would someone please help me? I'm unable to make this edit (at paste-bin per Nemo's request) to the page Help:CirrusSearch because of translations.  Thanks.

Nevermind Nemo. Hopefully, we'll help each other later.

Today CirrusSearch patch task T111293 hit the WP and MW sites, so I had to hack away at Help:CirrusSearch to "install" documentation corresponding to that patch. I did find the original "imbalanced translation tag" problem in the section I was not editing. I'd love see a decent how-to help page written for editors. This page and the others are for translators, not editors. All the sudden the wiki that anyone could edit was not editable, and the vacuous lacking was translated the world over. Cpiral (talk) 21:23, 22 September 2015 (UTC)