plaintext interface to list members
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/226bf6e0b35921e918bceda69f61c066.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Hallo.
I am working with a big project (in the OpenSource business) which runs some 150+ mailling lists with Smartmail. Now the main reason Mailman may not be an option is that the memmbership information is not in plaintext format.
Now, I have not looked at mailman much, but what format is the files? I am thinking about parsing the db files myself and write some frontend of my own. With that many working lists and the current amount of mails a day there is not much room for changing too much.
[ I know of list_members and remove_members, but the file format is not quite obvious... ]
Thanks, Alexander
-- SGH mbH Internet Division, Systems Administration, ako4-ripe Hannover, Germany, Phone +49 511 909198 0, Fax +49 511 391307
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/da0fe439d5892987c874412ba1a88d9d.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Hi,
I begun using Mailman because is seems simpler to use and configure than majordomo, and seems to have a better interface for subscribers and list administrators.
But... I am having a hard time translating messages for users (to Portuguese). I translate files, but what I would think are the corresponding pages, appear with a mixture of English and Portuguese.
Could somebody point to me which would be the more natural
way to do this? (For example: translate first files X, Y and Z,
and then compile; or ....).
Do any of you know of somebody which has made this translation to Portuguese? (A colegue of mine has done some patchy work, and we could join efforts with other people).
Thanx in advance for any help, Leonardo
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a41236d5a95c86b677171080d3f2fd24.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Leonardo Lazarte wrote:
Soon, very soon, Barry will release a new version of Mailman in which, support for internationalization (i18n) will be included.
The following should be done in order to achieve translation into a desired language: source code.
- Translate templates
- Translate a plain text file with all messages that mailman has inside
- Sign the appropriate forms to assign copyright of the translations to the Free Software Foundation.
Tell your friend not to lose his time doing something that's already been done, tell him to subscribe to mailman-i18n list to cooperate later about i18n issues. the ones who desire to synchronize themselves to translate catalog of messages are also members of this list.
The portuguese translation was assigned to "Fabio Dorival Victorelli" <fabio@conectiva.com.br>. You should contact him to ask for the actual status of translation.
Other translations in progress are: Brian Takashi Hooper <brian@garage.co.jp> --> Japanese Liborio Revilla Alonso <scsreall@sc.ehu.es> -> Euskera Mads Kiilerich <mk@solit.dk> --> Danish Michael Sobolev <mss@transas.com> --> Russian Pioppo <pioppo@ferrara.linux.it> --> Italian Mats Haglund <matsh@iirutb.se> --> Suedish Peter Muessig-Trapp <muessig@his.de>, --> German Dan Ohnesorg <dan@feld.cvut.cz> --> Czec tatooine.sistelnet.es (Eduardo Fernandez Corrales) and myself --> Spain
Those wanting to work on support for other languages should notify the mailman-i18n list.
Cheers
___
/ F \
[[[]]]]
( O O )
#----------------0000--(_)--0000---------------# | Juan Carlos Rey Anaya (jcrey@uma.es) | | Servicio Central de informática | | Universidad de Málaga - España | #----------------------------------------------# # Solo se que cada vez se menos :-| # #----------------------------------------------#
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/da0fe439d5892987c874412ba1a88d9d.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Thanks to Juan Carlos Rey Anaya and Alexandre Denes dos Santos for their replies to my question on translation.
PORTUGUESE VERSION:
To begin with, there seem to be several people translating Mailman to Portuguese in Brazil. (People at Connectiva, at PUCPR, and at UnB, at least!)
INTERNATIONALIZATION (Suggestion):
I read the few archived messages in the list on internationalization, and could not find what I was looking for: some sort of path to where are things to be translated.
I was more lucky with the list on development, where I found some messages on putting things to be edited (HTML) in a set of separated files [Suggestion, not implemented].
Perhaps that has already been suggested, but, may I suggest that *ALL* language-specific things, such as:
- HTML interfaces
- HTML messages
- Mail messages
- Error messages are put in a set of files, so that translations could be easier, safer, and could be used for new versions?
INTERNATIONALIZATION (Questions):
Juan Carlos mentioned a
plain text file with all messages that mailman has inside source code
. Which is this file? I found English text scattered all over the files.Is there any DOCs as to what the Internalization project consists of?
Would it be too difficult to make the program read a set of variables from these files?
Leonardo
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/da883e723f3f11043aa4199c7f3071b1.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On Tue, Mar 28, 2000 at 07:44:15AM +0000, Alexander Koch wrote:
Now, I have not looked at mailman much, but what format is the files? I am thinking about parsing the db files myself
The config.db of each mailing list is a marshalled Python dictionary, which contains members and digest_members dictionaries. The keys of those two dictionaries are the lower case mail addresses of subscribers. MailList provides functions GetMembers() and GetDigestMembers() for getting the subscriber lists (or GetDeliveryMembers(), GetDigestDeliveryMembers() to preserve case in the usernames).
[ I know of list_members and remove_members, but the file format is not quite obvious... ]
list_members output file format is a simple list of subscribers' Email addresses.
You might also want to investigate bin/withlist which provides a framework for examining and modifying a list database, with optional locking of the database to permit safe modifications. You can use withlist to apply a function to a list using the -r switch.
$python -i bin/withlist my-list
print m.GetMembers()
-- Jim Tittsler, Tokyo Python Starship http://starship.python.net/crew/jwt/
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/da0fe439d5892987c874412ba1a88d9d.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Hi,
I begun using Mailman because is seems simpler to use and configure than majordomo, and seems to have a better interface for subscribers and list administrators.
But... I am having a hard time translating messages for users (to Portuguese). I translate files, but what I would think are the corresponding pages, appear with a mixture of English and Portuguese.
Could somebody point to me which would be the more natural
way to do this? (For example: translate first files X, Y and Z,
and then compile; or ....).
Do any of you know of somebody which has made this translation to Portuguese? (A colegue of mine has done some patchy work, and we could join efforts with other people).
Thanx in advance for any help, Leonardo
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a41236d5a95c86b677171080d3f2fd24.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Leonardo Lazarte wrote:
Soon, very soon, Barry will release a new version of Mailman in which, support for internationalization (i18n) will be included.
The following should be done in order to achieve translation into a desired language: source code.
- Translate templates
- Translate a plain text file with all messages that mailman has inside
- Sign the appropriate forms to assign copyright of the translations to the Free Software Foundation.
Tell your friend not to lose his time doing something that's already been done, tell him to subscribe to mailman-i18n list to cooperate later about i18n issues. the ones who desire to synchronize themselves to translate catalog of messages are also members of this list.
The portuguese translation was assigned to "Fabio Dorival Victorelli" <fabio@conectiva.com.br>. You should contact him to ask for the actual status of translation.
Other translations in progress are: Brian Takashi Hooper <brian@garage.co.jp> --> Japanese Liborio Revilla Alonso <scsreall@sc.ehu.es> -> Euskera Mads Kiilerich <mk@solit.dk> --> Danish Michael Sobolev <mss@transas.com> --> Russian Pioppo <pioppo@ferrara.linux.it> --> Italian Mats Haglund <matsh@iirutb.se> --> Suedish Peter Muessig-Trapp <muessig@his.de>, --> German Dan Ohnesorg <dan@feld.cvut.cz> --> Czec tatooine.sistelnet.es (Eduardo Fernandez Corrales) and myself --> Spain
Those wanting to work on support for other languages should notify the mailman-i18n list.
Cheers
___
/ F \
[[[]]]]
( O O )
#----------------0000--(_)--0000---------------# | Juan Carlos Rey Anaya (jcrey@uma.es) | | Servicio Central de informática | | Universidad de Málaga - España | #----------------------------------------------# # Solo se que cada vez se menos :-| # #----------------------------------------------#
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/da0fe439d5892987c874412ba1a88d9d.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Thanks to Juan Carlos Rey Anaya and Alexandre Denes dos Santos for their replies to my question on translation.
PORTUGUESE VERSION:
To begin with, there seem to be several people translating Mailman to Portuguese in Brazil. (People at Connectiva, at PUCPR, and at UnB, at least!)
INTERNATIONALIZATION (Suggestion):
I read the few archived messages in the list on internationalization, and could not find what I was looking for: some sort of path to where are things to be translated.
I was more lucky with the list on development, where I found some messages on putting things to be edited (HTML) in a set of separated files [Suggestion, not implemented].
Perhaps that has already been suggested, but, may I suggest that *ALL* language-specific things, such as:
- HTML interfaces
- HTML messages
- Mail messages
- Error messages are put in a set of files, so that translations could be easier, safer, and could be used for new versions?
INTERNATIONALIZATION (Questions):
Juan Carlos mentioned a
plain text file with all messages that mailman has inside source code
. Which is this file? I found English text scattered all over the files.Is there any DOCs as to what the Internalization project consists of?
Would it be too difficult to make the program read a set of variables from these files?
Leonardo
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/da883e723f3f11043aa4199c7f3071b1.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On Tue, Mar 28, 2000 at 07:44:15AM +0000, Alexander Koch wrote:
Now, I have not looked at mailman much, but what format is the files? I am thinking about parsing the db files myself
The config.db of each mailing list is a marshalled Python dictionary, which contains members and digest_members dictionaries. The keys of those two dictionaries are the lower case mail addresses of subscribers. MailList provides functions GetMembers() and GetDigestMembers() for getting the subscriber lists (or GetDeliveryMembers(), GetDigestDeliveryMembers() to preserve case in the usernames).
[ I know of list_members and remove_members, but the file format is not quite obvious... ]
list_members output file format is a simple list of subscribers' Email addresses.
You might also want to investigate bin/withlist which provides a framework for examining and modifying a list database, with optional locking of the database to permit safe modifications. You can use withlist to apply a function to a list using the -r switch.
$python -i bin/withlist my-list
print m.GetMembers()
-- Jim Tittsler, Tokyo Python Starship http://starship.python.net/crew/jwt/
participants (4)
-
Alexander Koch
-
Jim Tittsler
-
Juan Carlos Rey Anaya
-
Leonardo Lazarte