I.   What it is.
II.  What it can.
III. What it need.

I.   What it is.

  I've started bulding multilingual translation system adjusted to 
  documentation of POV-Ray. I remeber that some of POVers (including me) 
  promised some time ago that when 3.5 will be released they will translate 
  documentation to their own languages. I think that's the time. But I think 
  it could be wasting of time when each translator would build own system with
  own tracker for changes, own design, etc. etc. I want to simplify it to left
  as small amount of work as possible for busy POVers. I remember there are 
  some national communities so perhaps it is worth.

II.  What it can.

  It will track changes on available documentation and highlight changed 
  parts. It will allow to view history of changes.

  It will allow translation in any order and any part of documentation
  including comments in inlined POV source code, description for images etc. 
  It will not allow translation of not language dependant part of html tags or
  chapter numbering.

  It will use language characters during translation in forms. It will output 
  unicode codes for languages during final files generation.

  It will track changes.

  It will be accessible for allowed users via WWW. It will export (probably by
  sent to mail) ready to use translated documentation. As long as sequence 
  will not be translated it will be outputed in original.

  It will be possible to translate in cooperation (more than one translator 
  per language). No more than one translator per section at the same time.

  It will use javascript, cookies, forms.

  It will not allow (I hope only at begining) languages not written from left 
  to right.

  It will be ready to translate (little later) platform specific chapters and
  patch documentations.

  It will be base on unix documentation html files unless I get something more
  from the Team.

  It will generate some statistic like how many to translate in each chapter.

III. What it need.

  I need translators. If you want to help in building community support send 
  to me your:
    - email
    - real name or nick
    - speed estimation, for example: sentence per week, chapter per day, 1000 
      characters in an hour

  This week I will gather initial list of translators and finish system
  bulding so translation will start probably next monday. I will start no more
  than one translation/language per day becouse I have to test/verify with 
  translator some language specific features like page coding, characters or 
  internet browser cooperation.

  If the list of workers will be really big I will setup some mail-driven 
  list or ask the team for use povray.documentation.inbuilt or separated 
  group on this server.

  I need comments and suggestions.

ABX

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