Insertables are a new tool to easily copy some text from the source language to your translation with one click.

Have you ever translated anything with the Translate extension? Did it contain markup like this?

[http://very.long.url/here link description]
{{GENDER:$1|he|she}} posted $2 on $3

If so, then you know what this is about. Have you ever translated anything with the Translate extension while using a tablet or another device without a physical keyboard? If so, then you likely know why this interesting.

When you translate text written in wiki markup, or software interface strings, you will encounter the examples above, and many more parts which you need to copy verbatim while translating. These parts contain special characters like braces, dollar signs, brackets, pipes and so on. These characters are cumbersome to type on non-English keyboards, where they have been moved to more difficult to reach key combinations in favour of local characters – if they exist in the layout at all. If they don’t exist in the keyboard layout, you need to switch keyboard layouts just to type few characters and then switch it back.

Does this sound cumbersome? Many translators in fact do not do that, but instead they copy and paste the text from the source text. On tablets however, copy and paste itself is a cumbersome thing. Insertables are a solution to this usability issue.

We can automatically identify a part of the translatable text which has the following properties: it should not be changed and it is difficult to type. We can then present these parts of strings as buttons near the translation. Clicking or pressing that button inserts the text into the translation. These buttons complement the insert source text button and are optional to use, like all translation helpers we provide.

Happy translator using the new feature

As of now, we only detect a few types of these insertables: plural, grammar magic words, and variables in MediaWiki style ($1). Read more on Translate documentation for how to contribute more insertables.

-- Niklas Laxström.