HRWiki talk:Subtitles

From Homestar Runner Wiki

Revision as of 22:40, 28 November 2007 (edit) Religious Corn (Talk | contribs) (→List problem) ← Older edit		Revision as of 22:49, 28 November 2007 (edit) (undo) Religious Corn (Talk | contribs) (→List problem: from me) Newer edit →
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	== List problem ==		== List problem ==
-	Uh oh. Ever since we changed the subtitles list to a special page, we can't add new subtitle videos onto it! I mean, [[Rap Song]] has subtitles, but it's not on the list! [[Bug In Mouth Disease|The good times are over]]!!	+	Uh oh. Ever since we changed the subtitles list to a special page, we can't add new subtitle videos onto it! I mean, [[Rap Song]] has subtitles, but it's not on the list! [[Bug In Mouth Disease|The good times are over]]!! {{User:Religious Corn/sig}} 22:49, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

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Revision as of 22:49, 28 November 2007

Current | Archive 1 (1-20) | Archive 2 (21-40) | Archive 3 (41-60)

Contents 1 Language requests 1.1 Dutch (NL) 1.2 Finnish (FI) 1.3 Polish (PL) 1.4 Turkish (TR) 1.5 Italian (IT) 1.6 Japanese (JP) 1.7 Chinese (ZH) 2 From Da Basement 3 Translation Guidelines 4 RTL Necessary? 5 doc.documentElement has no properties 6 More Visible? 7 Greasemonkey Incompatibility with Newer Firefox Versions 8 Browser Compatibility 9 Pop-Up Video 10 Singing 10.1 Data 10.2 Whether to do it 11 Localized templates 12 Sub viewers 13 A little tool to help translating subtitles 14 Names' translations 15 List problem

Language requests

Dutch (NL)

Would you please add NL to Subtitles:Languages? --Pdedecker 11:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I just saw that NL has been added, thanks! --Pdedecker 18:46, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh yes, I forgot to post in this thread. You're welcome! Cheers! — It's dot com 03:21, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Finnish (FI)

I would be quite eager to start out with Finnish subtitling cartoons, as I have absolutely nothing to do after I get home from college (weird, huh?). So if someone would add Finnish there, it'd be much obliged. --Sysrq868 16:58, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

You should be all set. Go crazy go nuts! — It's dot com 02:35, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Polish (PL)

What I said. JudgeDeadd 04:34, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

You should be good to go. — It's dot com 20:06, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Turkish (TR)

Could you add Turkish language to the subtitles, please? Peace at Home, Peace in the World 85.107.249.107 11:05, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I would be happy to, but tell me a little bit about yourself first. Do you intend to write the subtitles pages yourself, or do you just wish that Turkish was already available? If you mean that you're going to help write them, then why not sign up for an account? It's free and has many benefits. On the other hand, if you just want to be able to read the site in Turkish, then we'll need to find a translator first. Please let me know. Talk atcha later! — It's dot com 00:21, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Hello, do you remember me? Or an IP starts with 85? Don't remember? Then, look at subtitles requests and choose Turkish(TR) from the navigation menu? Yeah, I did what you say, and it passed some time, but I was looking continually the page whether a reply comes before you reply. And, that's your answer: I'm Turkish, and so, I can read and write Turkish subtitles. I know English, of course, but not all Turks. (Or some of them are know at least). Anyway, I want Turkish subtitles add to the list, and my goal is that HR cartoons have loved by Turkish kids, adults, and everyone. Is this wrong? Say if it is. Anymore, I already tested a SB Email cartoon. Look if you want. Here comes. OK, I think it (my reply) is long enough. I talked you and if you want, you talk atcha later, too. Thanx. Homesturk 16:57, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Of course I remember you. Glad to see you created an account! I will enable the Turkish subtitles just as soon as I get a chance. — It's dot com 17:11, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Italian (IT)

Italian is one of the most well-known languages in the world. I think it deserves subtitles. 124.176.190.64 08:19, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

See below. — It's dot com 15:49, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Japanese (JP)

This language is infamous for its bad translations into English - I think it deserves subtitles as well. I am also a fluent Japanese speaker. 124.176.190.64 08:19, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

See below. — It's dot com 15:49, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Chinese (ZH)

Another popular language! 124.176.190.64 08:19, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

We don't enable languages just because they're there. We have to have someone demonstrate that they're committed to working on translation. Why don't you create an account and let us know what kind of input you can give and then we'll talk again. — It's dot com 15:49, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

From Da Basement

Copied from HRWiki:Da_Basement#Subtitles:

Some of us have started working on subtitling Homestar Runner Flash cartoons to make them accessible to a wider audience. I would like to know what the HRWiki folks think about this. Should this be a part of the knowledge base wiki? Should it be separate? Would you help? The subtitles are based on the transcripts from the wiki, so there is a strong connection already. The subtitles project is still beta, but it should work with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Most subtitles have been donated by Phlip from an older project, and I and Elcool have done the international ones. Check it out and let us know. Loafing 22:00, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I personally know one person who'd be interested in that... --Senorial Jay (Convolutions) 22:19, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I strongly support having some way to intergrate the subtitles files into the wiki. As a non-native speaker sometimes I need to go over the wiki transcript just to see what a word or two means. This way , it's already inside the toon window itself. Also, we could open the door for people with hearing problems who still want experiance Homestar Runner like the rest of us. Some flash artists like Weeble from Weeble and Bob and the people behind Too Much Spare Time Animation have already added subtitles to some of their toons. So If TBC aren't going to do it themselvs, we are here for them. — Elcool ^(talk)_(contribs) 22:26, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

The .xml file for Exp Film's Commentary doesn't work. --Senorial Jay (Convolutions) 22:54, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Cheers, fixed the link. Also, listening to the commentary is currently not possible anyway, because of Flash security measures :-/ And I forgot to upload the experiment film subs, will have to wait until I'm back home. Loafing 23:09, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

We need this in the Greasemonkey script, pronto. ¤ The Mü _{Talk to me.} 02:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I showed it to the person I previously alluded. The biggest reason I got into H*R in the first place was because it allowed me to share the gift of Homestar with this person, who cannot hear. She says she likes the subtitled stuff better than the Wiki. "But no offense." --Senorial Jay (Convolutions) 03:09, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Seriously, you just made my day :-D  Loafing 05:27, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Deaf watchers, eh? I'd assume captions, as opposed to subtitles would be more important then, yes? (For the uninitiated: subtitles transcribe the words, captions transcribe all the sound effects too.) --phlip ^T_C 05:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Take 'em as they come. --Senorial Jay (Convolutions) 05:49, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, let's just say, hypothetically, I wanted to make one of these. How would I get the frame numbers to start/stop each line on? And how would I test it? --Senorial Jay (Convolutions) 06:06, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

We haven't quite worked out the standards for subtitles/captions yet, so the format may change a little. But if you want to try it now, then here's how you do it: You need Phlip's Firefox Greasemonkey script. This will give you a seek bar for Flash toons from Homestarrunner.com. It also displays the current frame number. Then you grab one of the XML files from the subtitle site, scoop it empty, and use it as a skeleton. You probably also want to copy the text of the transcript into this file and split it up into short sections or sentences that you want to display as one title. Then use the seekbar to find the first and last frame numbers for each of the sections. It gets easy after you've done it once or twice. And you get to know the toon pretty well. Also note that each character has his or her own colour code. I'll put a page online soon with some more detailed hints, and I'll come up with a way of testing the titles. — I'm still not sure where to put the page with instructions. Do people believe this should be an HRWiki project, or should it be separate?  Loafing 06:25, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Aside from the frame numbers, I'd pretty much figured that all out. I have the beginnings of a Halloween Potion-ma-jig .xml file, but without frame numbers. --Senorial Jay (Convolutions) 06:29, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Sound promising :-) I'll come up with a test page soon(ish). And you've heard that before, but... you should really be on IRC ;-)  Loafing 06:36, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I've never successfully managed to join IRC when a useful conversation is taking place. Plus, I have issues getting to it. --Senorial Jay (Convolutions) 06:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Alright you guys, I finished the .XML file for Cool Tapes. Ding! ¤ The Mü _{Talk to me.} 03:04, 26 August 2006 (UTC) Is there a talk page specifically for this project? I thought of some things to discuss, but we'd flood Da Basement. I think there should be some sort of central Wiki page for this project, even if it's in a User space. - Qermaq - (^T/C)  03:38, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not in the mood for IRC right now, but I figured I'd give an update. I have all of the text in my .xml file. I do not, however, have any frame numbers past the three Coach Z/Pom Pom scenarios. --Senorial Jay (Convolutions) 06:47, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Translation Guidelines

Always start from the English subtitles. This saves a lot of time and work, because then, the frame numbers only have to be found once. Use the same start and end values for all languages.

Do we want to phrase it this way? I can imagine a scenario where this would lead to a poorer subtitling. First, if the English is not subtitled well, we're basically asking the translator to not improve it, which is, in a word, stupid. Second, there will be times when for the timing of a joke to work right, or for the reader to have sufficient time to read the subtitle, the start or end values may need to vary. Trouble is, I'm not sure how to word it. Thoughts welcome. - Qermaq - (^T/C)  22:00, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to respond to question. I can give you a hazy answer, at best. Generally speaking, it is MUCH easier for a translator to take the original subtitles XML page and simply reword the idea being expressed by the text. As least for most romance languages word placement (in grammar) is similar enough that the right timing for an english translation will correlate with the right timing for an adequate translation. That is, when something is said in the english subtitles, the same thing should be said in the <insert favorite foreign language here> translation. Most english subtitles also go by transcript (I beleive) so if the English transcript is well-written, a skilled translator should not have much trouble conveying the same idea. What's left would be improper timing in the original english subtitle. If that is the case, those subtitles would need to be re-timed (or words re-split). Any re-timings can be fixed in other translations, while re-splits can be notified with a {{fixtranslation}} tag, and a note in each translation's discussion. Again, as for timings/splits having to be different across translations I consider that to be an unlikely occurrence, and not necessarily a serious impact in translation quality. --Stux 20:05, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I have also added a note suggesting that the translated toon be watched in order to make sure that the translation went ok. I figure if any inconsistencies arise they can be caught there and the translator can choose to change index times if need be. --Stux 04:53, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

RTL Necessary?

I guess this is more of a viewer implementation issue, but, according to the text:

*If your language is written from the right to the left, put dir="rtl" in the opening <transcript> tag.

Isn't the RTL property a language-dependent property? If so, shouldn't that be permanently set in the Subtitles:Languages file? That way:

• Translators that need RTL don't need to "remember to add it" every time a new toon is translated.
• Anyone feeling funny won't put "RTL" in some english toons.

I'm also sure no language has text that is RTL and non-RTL. The only time that I'd see RTL be changed is if non-RTL text is inlined with a translation (in a different language) of RTL text (or vice versa), something H*R I doubt will ever see. This would mean a per-line optional RTL field for the viewer. Anyway. I just wanted to put that suggestion up if it's feasible, that way the line I quoted can also be removed. (That would save E.L. Cool some trouble too ;) ) --Stux 20:18, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I think you're right, it's a per-language property. And it is actually possible to choose an alternate direction within a subtitles script using a <span> tag. I'm not sure if it's worth the hassle of changing the code, though ;-) Let's see what Phlip says. Loafing 22:41, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I was suggesting that the code handle both ways: the old and new, in order to avoid incompatibilities with existing transcripts, whereas allowing us to make newer sleeker ones! :) --Stux 23:14, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

doc.documentElement has no properties

That's what it says when I try to access the subtitles via the external viewer under the Error Console. 76.184.199.4 23:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Which browser are you using? And which subtitles are you trying to see? Loafing 23:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Firefox, and all of them. 76.184.199.4 12:21, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Blast! You're right, it's broken :-/ It's past bed time for me, so it'll have to wait for now. Thanks for letting me know. In the meantime, you could go ahead and install the Greasemonkey script for your browser. It displays subtitles flawlessly and has lots of other cool features (like a seek bar and a fullscreen mode). Loafing 12:28, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

More Visible?

Since the purported purpose of this project (nice alliteration) is to help those with difficulty understanding the toons, perhaps it would be better to make them more visible on the pages of individual toons, or perhaps put a link to subtitles on the main page of the wiki. I accidentally stumbled up subtitles the other day while going through the recent changes, and if I, an avid wiki user, didn't see them except by accident, they may be missing their intended audience. Just a suggestion, take it with as big a grain of salt as you need.— Bassbone (^{TALK CONT}) 22:30, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that putting a link on the main page is an excellent idea. Where should it go? — It's dot com 02:46, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Might I suggest a link under the "Browse the Knowledge Base" section, in the Miscellany subsection (if space allows)? Perhaps the title "Subtitled Toons" might be appropriate as well. Though a more prominent place might be more advisable. --Stux 02:57, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I think this a great idea too. After looking through the various groupings of links on the main page, I didn't think it fit very well into any of the existing categories. So, maybe something separate, like including this somewhere on the main page:

Want to enjoy Homestar Runner without sound? Check out our Subtitles project.

That can probably be reworded better, though. Trey56 02:58, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking about the same section as Stux. And if we're really bold, we could add subtitles links to new toons in the whatsnew section... We could also announce the subtitles project on the main page like Trey suggested for a few weeks maybe? Important: let me fix the external viewer before we make it more public. Loafing 03:02, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean alongside the "watch" link, adding a "watch with subtitles" link? If so, I was thinking of suggesting the same thing but refrained. The external viewer definitely needs to have the improvements that have been made to the userscript pulled over before we point people to it.—BryanCTC 03:15, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary to put a link to each individual subtitles page of all the toons listed on the main page (especially since we prefer that people use the GM script). If we make the link to the project prominent enough, that should be plenty for now. — It's dot com 04:11, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Greasemonkey Incompatibility with Newer Firefox Versions

Not so much a problem with the Greasemonkey script as with Greasemonkey itself. Right now I'm running Minefield 3.0a4, and Greasemonkey doesn't seem to like any versions higher than 2. Is there any simple way to fix this without resorting to the whole "unpack, edit version, repack" thing, or is that the simple way? LEMME NOES. - Super Sam 01:19, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that GM even loads — I haven't tried Minefield yet. I assume you understand the implications of running alpha level software... one of them being can count on not everything working. (You can expect that from early betas even). Are you trying a similiarly bleeding-edge revision of GM? You could try using a copy direct from their development source tree, might help.—BryanCTC 01:55, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

The latest version still only works up to Firefox 2, but I tweaked the maxversion parameter and I'm good to go. - Super Sam 04:37, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Browser Compatibility

Browser	Greasemonkey	External Viewer
Firefox 1.5	XP, Linux	XP, Linux
Firefox 2.0	XP, Linux, OSX	XP, Linux, OSX
Firefox 3	-	-
Opera 9	-	XP
Safari	-	OSX
IE 5.0	-	-
IE 5.5	-	XP, Linux
IE 6	-	XP, Linux
IE 7	-	XP
MSN Explorer	-	XP
SeaMonkey 1.1.1	-	XP, Linux
SeaMonkey 1.5	-	-
Netscape 7.2	-	XP
Epiphany	-	Linux

I've rewritten the external viewer, and now it reportedly runs in most browsers on several OSs. Yay! Thanks to DorianGray, Trey56, Lapper, Tom, Stux, Has Matt? and Dot Com for beta-testing it. If you have a browser/OS combination that hasn't been tested yet, please post the results below (including browser name and version as well as the operating system), and I'll update the box above (kudos to Stux for suggesting the table). Yay! The external viewer is finally doing what it's supposed to do :-D Loafing 23:41, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

SeaMonkey 1.1.1 works, but what they've got so far for 1.5 loads the toon but not the subtitles, so we may wind up doing this all over again when Firefox 3 comes out. — User:ACupOfCoffee@ 10:48, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that's not until November or whenever. That's like decades in internet-years ;-) Thanks for testing, everybody! It looks like we've got a good coverage of browsers now. Loafing 11:44, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

ACupOfCoffee: does this mean that neither viewer works in Firefox 3? Loafing 21:29, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Pop-Up Video

This subtitles project is super and awesome and super awesome. I was wondering what people would think about using the subtitles framework for a sort of pop-up video-type commentary track. For instance, the script could tell you where to click for Easter eggs, and maybe run short fun facts. Homestar Coder 15:15, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

This is an interesting idea, but I'm not sure the benefit would outweigh the expense on this one. What kind of mechanism did you have in mind for this? I dunno... We've done pretty well just listing Easter eggs and things on the wiki. Transcripts are pretty cut-and-dried most of the time, but including fun facts seems like it would just be opening us to having to argue about them in two places instead of one. — It's dot com 15:43, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by what kind of mechanism. The subtitle mechanism. What expense would there be? I'm willing to do them. And maybe not fun facts. This stemmed from the fact that I can never remember when to click to get the Easter egg while I'm actually watching the toon. I think it would be neat to have an automatic reminder come up. (Also, if I want to see where to click to get an Easter egg, it's in the same place as what the Easter egg contains so I'm spoiled for it.) Homestar Coder 16:15, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment, Homestar Coder ^_^. I had actually thought about adding this kind of functionality for Easter eggs at the beginning of the project. I decided against it for several reasons: displaying popups over a Flash object is a much less stable solution than displaying text next to a Flash object. For example, it does not work at all under Linux. Accordingly, our Easter egg hints might often have to be lengthy descriptions on where to click. The timing for Easter egg hints would also have to be asynchronous to the timing of the subtitles, making our display code a little more complicated. Of course it's all technically possible, and probably not such a great deal to implement in a very simple and robust manner. How usable it would be is another question. I also believe that this would take away a great deal of the toons' charm. Easter eggs are supposed to be hard to find, and listing them in an article is already a great help. I suspect that making them even easier to find might make them somewhat boring. But that might just be me. I guess if I find some time in the next few hours, I could whip up a simple example where I replace the subtitles with Easter eggs and fun facts, just to see how it would be... I am curious. Loafing 20:52, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Cool, thans for the response. I guess the pop-up thing was misleading; I don't want actual pop-ups showing where to click, just text saying "click the word egg!" or some such. There aren't all that many toons where the description of where to click is that long or difficult. And yes, the timing of Easter eggs is asynch to the timing of subtitles; I was always thinking it would be a separate track, so you couldn't have any subtitles on at the same time. As for removing the charm... well, I actually came up with this idea when I was catching up on my toon-watching, and realized I had two choices to make sure I saw all the Easter eggs: hold down tab during the whole toon (annoying) or reading it on the Wiki, which immediately spoils the joke (most of the Easter egg comments are stuff like "click on the word egg to see Homsar cracking an egg on his head!"). Homestar Coder 21:00, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, here's a rather un-sexy example for sbemail65. Loafing 22:38, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think it's pretty shiny. :) Homestar Coder 03:43, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

That just proves that you're more of a coder than a user =3 I've added another variant of how to display an egg hint. Still not ideal... One thing that I noticed while coming up with the example was that fun facts are probably not going to work. They work well for music videos, but when you watch a toon, you will probably not want to read something that distracts you from what's going on. Loafing 08:04, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I totally did not remember that you could click the stacks of paper, and now I did! You're probably right about the fun facts though. Homestar Coder 13:45, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Singing

Data

As a test, who can see some of these symbols in their browser: ♩♪♫♬𝅘𝅥𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅯 ♩♪♫♬𝅘𝅥𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅯 (I can see the first 4, but not the last 3... I just put them in for completeness)... if they work in enough browser/font setups, perhaps we could use one of them instead of the (singing) tag in the subtitles... just a thought. --phlip ^T_C 01:19, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Same here, IE7 and Firefox 1.5 for Windows XP (SP2) and Firefox 1.5 and Safari 2 for MaxOS X (10.4.9). Incidentally, the italic versions don't look very good here (and in some cases are the same as the normal versions). — It's dot com 01:22, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Same here (I'm at work, using Firefox 1.5 for Win XP (SP2)), but the second note of the non-italic version has the vertical line missing. Loafing 01:43, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

In the most recent version of Opera (W98), first 4 are same but non-italicized/italicized, last 3 are nothing. - Qermaq - (^T/C)  01:59, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I see "♩NN♬𝅘𝅥𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅯 ♩NN♬𝅘𝅥𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅯" in Firefox 2.0.0.6, N being a musical note. -- Super Martyo boing! 20:19, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Whether to do it

I'd advise sticking with plain-English "singing" as that's obviously cross-platform. - Qermaq - (^T/C)  02:00, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Localized templates

The subtitles template is good in English, yes. But let's be honest: not too many English-speaking people, albeit if they know the foreign language, are going to watch the toon with some other language subtitles. Mostly the international subtitles are made for the people that don't speak English that well, right? Then why wouldn't we make a instructions template in that very language, then? It's good of course to have it in English. But there could also be another version in the subtitles language. This way the people that really need the subtitles (non-English speaking people) would know exactly how to see them. Good/bad idea? I don't want to take the power over this in my hands, because you guys know better. Thanks! --Sysrq868 06:13, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that there should be instructions somewhere for people in their native languages, but I'm not sure that's the place to do it. Since this is an English-language wiki, it takes at least a passing knowledge of English just to reach those pages in the first place. I'm not opposed to the idea, though, if others think that's a good place for such instructions. — It's dot com 12:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree — instructions someplace for people who want to watch a toon with non-English language subtitles would be good, but the template isn't the best place. For the most part, the people who will look at the individual subtitles pages are translators, who should already know English well.

What about a line near the top of HRWiki:Subtitles on the Main Page that says something like,

Want to view subtitles in a non-English language? Click your language for instructions:

Deutsch | עברית | Español | Français | Nederlands | Suomi | Polski | Português do Brasil

Each page would have simple instructions on getting subtitles working, and probably some instructions on how to use the various options in the Greasemonkey script, etc.

If we combine this with adding a link to the subtitles project to the Main Page, I think it could really help people get started watching Homestar Runner cartoons in their native languages.

Well, just an idea, maybe there's a better way to do it. Trey56 13:23, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I like that! Except that to get to that page, you would still need quite a spazzing English knowledge... Maybe a small boxie on the front page somewhere, leading to a quick introduction to the world of Homestar Runner and the wiki in each language (not exactly rewriting the wiki in some other language, just a few lines and a few lead characters, introducing Chapmans etc. - a summary, if you like), combined with subtitles instructions and a list of the language's subtitles? So the users shouldn't be recycled through the Subtitles project page, just nice 'n' quick straight to business, you know? Just a thought. --Sysrq868 16:23, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Ideas? Thoughts? Suggestions? Flames? Actions? Nothing? --Sysrq868 21:45, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry I haven't replied to this yet. I think this is an important problem, and we need to fix it. I've been too busy in the last few days to actually think about it. But soon, I'll promise ;-) Sorry for that. Blame the real life! Loafing 11:32, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Alright, it only took me three weeks to actually read this discussion ;-) I think you are bringing up a very good point, Sysrq. Instructions in different languages on how to watch the subtitles would definitely be helpful. We have to have a good think about where to put them and how much we translate. As you guys have said before, to come to any page concerning subtitles, one has to have some knowledge of English. Now, if we assume that those subtitles help viewers with no or very little knowledge of English, should we create non-English pages that serve as the homepage / start page / entry point for non-English speakers? It kind of makes sense. People can link to / visit these pages directly without having to navigate through an English wiki. However, these pages should be confined to explaining how the subtitles work. Otherwise, we run the risk of starting to translate the whole wiki, and that's a completely different project. The next question would be if and how we translate the viewers themselves. Currently, the menus and text for both viewers are in English. I remember Phlip saying that it would be technically complicated to do this for the greasemonkey script, although I can't find that discussion right now. My suggestion is as follows:

1. Create custom start pages for each language that explains how to view subtitles.
2. Create a page like HRWiki:Subtitles/List that links directly to the toons / external viewer instead of the subtitles scripts.
3. Add a translated help link to the viewers that point to the custom start pages based on the language of the script currently used.

I think that should be enough to bypass the wiki for non-English speakers. Loafing 02:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I like it! The only thing I would add is a suggestion to add links to the translated help pages on the Main Page (something like above) — sounds good! Trey56 02:16, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Cool! I'm only now realizing that you already suggested most of the stuff I said ;-) Loafing 02:21, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Meh, it sounds clearer the way you said it ;) I'm going to throw together a mock subtitles instructions page so people can get a better feel of what it might be like... Trey56 02:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Just a suggestion for the summary, we could just use the Wikipedia entries in other languages where possible for the introduction to the website. That would save some translation work. wbwolf (t | ed) 03:56, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, here's my version of the page that could be translated into other languages: User:Trey56/HRWiki:Welcome/LANGUAGE CODE. It needs a lot of work, and there are some incomplete sections. If anybody feels like editing it or making suggestions, go ahead. Trey56 04:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Looks a-pretty-pretty good! However, I have some thoughts: Firstly, maybe Translating Subtitles shouldn't be so high, if at all there. If a person that speaks English well enough to translate subtitles would stumble across this wiki, they probably wouldn't visit (or at least think the world of) a page like this. Secondly, I think there should be at least some information about the world of H*R. When I first went to Homestarrunner.com, even watching "First Time Here?" didn't help too much. It's the wiki that really cracked it open for me. So, just the basics: who are the characters, what do they do, who does the website etc. Much like a short version of Homestar Runner (body of work). I wouldn't also too much worry about translating the greasemonkey UI. Finns are used to the kind of instructions like "Click on the button that says this and this", no matter what the language is. And Trey's thing explains every function quite satisfactory indeed. But anyways, awesome work Trey56, and let me know when this is shined up enough to start translating it! --Sysrq868 06:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Ooh, good ideas. Maybe I can move the "Translating Subtitles" below the Greasemonkey script instructions. Also, what you mentioned about an "About H*R" section is a wonderful idea. Do you think the Greasemonkey instructions should be trimmed down? They are excruciatingly long right now... Thanks for the great feedback! Trey56 06:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it's only long because it's just an explanation on the check-marks. If we got rid of all the subheaders nad make it a bulleted list it will shorter in size. — Elcool ^(talk)_(contribs) 06:32, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

No, the greasemonkey section's awesome. It serves as a sort of a manual, like in a very expensive TV: it explains every single little feature, but you'll only probably read it if you're very bored or seeking info about something particular. And if we translate the greasemonkey instruction titles like "Feature name in LANGUAGE (Feature name in English)", they can find it instantly. Move the Translation part after the greasemonkey instructions, and put a few paragraphs about H*R on its old place, and we'll be all set as far as I'm concerned. :) --Sysrq868 06:37, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Sub viewers

I love the subtitles viewer. Our version of Firefox is too old to download the Greasemonkey script. But just one thing. Why come there isn't a viewer for the toons not on the actual site? For instance, there is no local viewer link in Marshmallow's Last Stand or A Jumping Jack Contest. Religious Corn 22:15, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I guess it's a techincal limitation over how the viewer fetches the subtitle file, which is the page name on the Homestarrunner.com website. Or not. --Sysrq868 09:30, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Is it possible to add a viewer for these? Religious Corn 20:51, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's possible and not that hard to do. I'm just currently really stretched for time. I'll put it on my long long list of things to do ;-) Loafing 22:07, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

One more thing...something is wrong with some other viewers. For instance, the viewers for A Jorb Well Done and The Luau have the wrong SWF names. The sbemail brianrietta does not have any subtitles. Just thought I'd let you know. Religious Corn 22:25, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Ohhh, never mind. I'll just try to fix it myself, although I'm not quite sure how to fix brianrietta... Religious Corn   18:35, 25 September 2007 (UTC) 18:34, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Big Toons are done, next up are Shorts. I think I've figured out the problem with Brianrietta, but I'm not quite sure about it yet. Just have to wait till I get to the Sbemails. Religious Corn   19:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Let's go back to not-on-the-site subs. I once tried to go to subtitles.hrwiki.org/marshmallow2/en. The place where the toon should be was all white and the "subs" just said "loading flash". I looked at the HTML source, and all the lines are correct, but it thinks that the SWF file is still on homestarrunner.com. Is there a way to fix this so it knows that it's on the mirror? Religious Corn   19:28, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

A little tool to help translating subtitles

Hi everyone!
As part of the subtitles project, I'm trying to translate the toons and everything else in French, but, like any other project, that's not easy. To help me with this task, I created a little tool. I just finished coding it, you can find it here : [1].
This is very simple : just copy and paste the English subtitles, and you'll have two boxes for each sentence : one with the English sentence, and another one when you have to translate this sentence. If that's not very clear, just try it yourself!
More instructions are on the page, but for now, this is far from finished : there are still some nasty bugs, who prevent it from being really useful. If someone here knows how to resolve encoding problems with the loadXML function in PHP, I'll be very happy to hear the solution!
So, from now, it's still in a beta stage, waiting for advices. No need to continue it and fix it if it's not really useful. Well anyway, if you're a translator, please try it and tell me what you think of it.
Thank you for your time! Meuhcoin 00:12, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Whoa, this looks awesome! I'll mention it to a couple coding-savvy types around here and see if they can help at all with any of the bugs. Nice work! Trey56 00:21, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Awesome! Seems to work just fine for me. That's a really good idea :-D What encoding problems have you got? Loafing 02:57, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank, Trey and Loafing! Loafing, about the encoding problems, try for example with the Date Night subtitles. Those subtitles contain the character "—" a lot, and if you submit it and look at the lines that have it on the first page, they're messed up (there is a "Â" on front of them). Same goes for accents. So, after that, it can't find the original line (because "At best it's a broom or a—" and "At best it's a broom or a—" are different).

I also noticed that the span tag is messed up, because of the quotes. The line "But for this, maybe I should drown them in... <span style="visibility:hidden">drowning <em>them</em>!</span>" is cut before the end, once again because of the quotation marks. It's the same when there are quotation marks in a sentence.

Well anyway, I'll try my best to solve these problems. Thanks for you encouragements! Meuhcoin 07:32, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Before the first line of your PHP script, add <?php header("Content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8"); ?> – that should help with your encoding issues. As for the quotes, you've probably got something like print "<input etc etc value=\"$something\">"; right? Replace that with print "<input etc etc value=\"" . htmlspecialchars($something) . "\">"; – that'll encode the quotes so that they don't break stuff. Great work, by the way! --phlip ^T_C 07:42, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Hey Phlip! Thank you very much, your solutions helped to solve the problem. For the encoding issues, I also had to use some utf8_encode here, and utf8_decode there, but it works. htmlspecialchars worked for the quotes in text, but not for those in the span tag, so I replaced them with there code in HTML.

Anyway, the most important thing is that those problems are solved. I still have some issues to resolve, but they're minor issues. Thanks again! Meuhcoin 10:38, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... I try to avoid using utf8_decode/encode as much as possible... they'll choke on any unicode stuff that's not in ISO-8859-1... if you set the headers right, you should be able to just leave the UTF-8-encoded stuff as is... --phlip ^T_C 11:35, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunatly, without those, accents and all are messed up. I must have done something wrong, I'll look into that. But for now, I didn't see any character getting messed up with this. If you find one that is, tell me so I can change that quickly! Meuhcoin 12:03, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Names' translations

I want to promote a fashion to translate subtitles. I'd really like to always keep the names and references to games like "StrongBad Zone" in english, without being transliteratted, for example: Strong Bad being "Fuerte Malo" in spanish; It doesn't preserve the spirit and essence of the cartoon! Do I make myself clear? --[Lt. Dicai] 03:03, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes! There is actually a very long discussion in the archives about this, with the result that names probably should stay English in most languages. Also note the last comment in that section :-) Loafing 03:34, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I think certain characters could be translated; characters that have descriptive names, or characters that were invented by other characters on the fly. For example, I have translated King of Town, simply because... well, he is the king of the town. There are a lot of places where I'm glad that I did translate KoT's name, it's been very helpful when trying to make certain jokes work. I've also translated The Announcer, Teen Girl Squad and all its members. I haven't translated and I don't support the idea of translating every character, especially Strong XXX, The Cheat, or Homestar.

When I translate subtitles, I like to think the language layout, grammar, balance between standards and slang and those kinds of things as if the toon would be dubbed into the language by my subtitles, or that it was Finnish all along to begin with. Let me tell you; if a Finn did a cartoon, the last thing he'd do is give it and its characters English names. It just works better in Finnish, you can't beat that.

So in conclusion, my opinion is to translate some if you like, but not all. --Sysrq868 10:12, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

List problem

Uh oh. Ever since we changed the subtitles list to a special page, we can't add new subtitle videos onto it! I mean, Rap Song has subtitles, but it's not on the list! The good times are over!! Religious Corn   22:49, 28 November 2007 (UTC)