Ok, but not intuitive and the language is confusing

  • This plugin is on the way to become useful but it has two major problems:

    ? The UI is not as self-explanatory as it ought to be.
    ? The poor English used in parts of the plugin and in parts of the documentation makes it hard to understand what to do at times.

    An example of the former is that while it’s easy to find how to translate posts (just click the “Create and edit” link in the “Translations of this post” section below the editing area for the post) – there is no obvious pointer to how to make the language menu appear. If you search through the settings you are likely to find it eventually (I did) but some kind of hint of how to do it when you start translating would have been very helpful.

    (Hint: go to “Appearance” –> “Menus” in the general settings and add the xili language menu. It’d be great if there were some kind of warning in the xili language plugin if this hasn’t been done (or at least some kind of hint the first time you add a translation).)

    A getting started guide would be really helpful too. There is a forum and a blog but they mostly address random questions and information about plugin updates, not how to get started. Even the FAQ doesn’t show the necessary steps to get it up and running to the point that you have (i) a translated post and (ii) a working language menu which also (iii) changes the language of the interface.

    The second point (poor English) is only a minor nuisance sometimes, and sometimes it makes it pretty hard to understand what should be done. In the text below, for example, I understand that I should be careful about checking the checkbox below the text and that all the xili-language data will be erased if I do check it, but I don’t get the part about doing it after deactivating the plugin (what happens if I don’t deactivate the plugin first, is it still bad or nothing happens?) and I assume “(only multilingual features)” is trying to reassure me that the posts themselves will remain intact but I’m not certain I got that right:

    CAUTION: When checking below, after deactivating xili-language plugin, if delete it through plugins list, ALL the xili-language datas in database will be definitively ERASED !!! (only multilingual features). See Wiki for more details

    A cleanup of the language both in the plugin itself and in the documentation would be really helpful.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • Plugin Author Michel – xiligroup dev

    (@michelwppi)

    Elias,

    in the contributive WordPress world, your post retains our full attention.

    According your profile, I observe that your contribute since few weeks. It is a good start.

    As author of free plugins since more than 5 years and as contributor, , time to time, to core via tracs or forum, I met commentators like you once or twice a year.

    Better than commenting, please contribute and provide better texts, it will be easy (if good) to add them in next versions. And your name will be added to contributors list.

    Since version 1.5 (2005), I use WordPress. Plugin xili-language born with taxonomy (wp 2.3) is improved step by step following the improvements of WP it-self. A first time, plugin was made only for webmaster easy with php and wp architecture. WP core brings more and more tool or api helpful to build better dashboard interface and user experience.
    (remember that widget, navigation menus are recent features, before webmaster/developer built ul/li/css list himself…)
    To follow multiple thousands of xili-language users (according stats peak when upgrading), each release must be done with backwards compatibility.
    About philosophy of xili plugins see also this page (written with help of another WP user).
    Remember also that, against commercial other plugins, it is not a full time activity…

    Kind regards,

    M.

    Dear honorable Professor Elias Mossholm,

    it seems to me that you are a native speaker in English? Please gracefully forgive those who are not in the position to be as good as you.

    Ever spend any thoughts on the sense of free software? Ok it does’t mean that free software needs to have, how do you call it “poor” English. Free software comes always as is. If you don’t like it – don’t use it! If you do not understand, feel free to ask, but do it in a friendly manner. Do not shout at those spending their time and work to try to help and give solutions. Nobody is perfect. If you are able or blessed to have a strength or skill for example being a talented programmer it doesn’t mean that you are also have to be good in documenting at least not at all languages. If you are programming a multi language plugin, it doesn’t mean that you by default can speak, read or write all languages the plugin might be able to support! Any question about any thing is a chance to improve. Each question shows where documentation or functionality might suffer.

    So be constructive and help to improve, share your knowledge, help that others have a better experience than you have made. And hey others can’t be to ones to blame if you don’t understand things!

    You are looking bloody young … like Mr. M$ or Mr. FB back in the good old times ??
    Make some experience on how to treat others. Stay young stay foolish but forgive me while you read this, if my English is even not that good as yours. I’m not an native English speaker, but up to now everybody who wanted me to understand did so.

    Cheers!

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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