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We use .srt because that is the format of the timed text. We could imagine future timed text formats like popcorn, or vtt or any other timed text stuff we may want to use in the future. Also the languageCode.srt naming convention matches local srt files, so if you download the timed text by page title name into a folder applications like vlc would know what to do with it.  

Would it be possible to make some small adjustments to the translate extension to support the timedText namespace?

--michael

(In reply to comment #1)
> We use .srt because that is the format of the timed text. We could imagine
> future timed text formats like popcorn, or vtt or any other timed text stuff
> we
> may want to use in the future. 

I'm not shallenging the use of  srt format. :)

> Also the languageCode.srt naming convention
> matches local srt files, so if you download the timed text by page title name
> into a folder applications like vlc would know what to do with it.  

One can't just "save with name" or "save as" and keep the extension, and ?action=raw doesn't keep the extension or page title at all, firefox for instance saves it as index.php.
So this is not a feature we would be removing, as it doesn't exist and would rely on something else anyway.

The basic point is its useful to distinguish time text types.  We are using .srt today, but may use .vtt in the future if the timed text namespace did not have an extension, how would we distinguish types?

(In reply to comment #3)
> The basic point is its useful to distinguish time text types.  We are using
> .srt today, but may use .vtt in the future if the timed text namespace did
> not
> have an extension, how would we distinguish types?

The namespace doesn't contain the extension. The title does, but does it matter if it's at the end of the fullpagename? Can as well be at the end of basepagename.
I guess btw ContentHandler doesn't require it to know the format if needed?

yes, I mean the page title within the timed text namespace.

ContentHandler may be a way to go, would need to look into it in more detail. But things like <languages/> would not inherently be compatible if timed text had a different type and was not "wikitext"  

I suppose it could work that way .. i.e TimedText:FileName.webm.srt/en instead of  TimedText:FileName.webm.srt.es .. 

Who is the author of translate extension? If its not hard for the translation extension to special case the timed text pages that might be easier then moving all the pages and changing all the templates and code in Timed text. We have been using .{languageCode}.srt for a few years.

(In reply to comment #5)
> I suppose it could work that way .. i.e TimedText:FileName.webm.srt/en
> instead
> of  TimedText:FileName.webm.srt.es .. 

Yes.
The Translate extension has existed for several years too, and language code subpages are the standard in MediaWiki (system messages) and also Commons (thousands of templates, hundreds of pages...).
The author is Niklas, in cc. 

Again, it's not up to me to tell what's the best technical way, subpages seem less confusing for users but if it's a huge problem maybe another solution should be found, I don't know.

> ContentHandler may be a way to go, would need to look into it in more detail.
> But things like <languages/> would not inherently be compatible if timed text
> had a different type and was not "wikitext"  

Yes, <languages/> must be avoided, but this may be something to be left for the translation administrators to check.
Daniel can perhaps give some suggestion if ContentHandler is actually required or preferable?

So, what is the current status of this?

What’s the way forward − changing Translate to have it work .{languageCode}.srt ; or changing TMH (I guess) to use .srt/{languageCode}

If you ask me I’d be more inclined to the second solution, as Nemo said the /en way has been around forever and the rest of Commons works this way ; but I guess that’s not my call.

(Heck, I’m so desperate about this that I considered today enabling Translate on a TimedText and use crazy redirects in the hope it would work :-þ)

(In reply to comment #7)
> (Heck, I’m so desperate about this that I considered today enabling Translate
> on a TimedText and use crazy redirects in the hope it would work :-þ)

Redirects? How about transclusion, did you try it? You call it crazy but there's probably nothing else to do, I don't think TMH is receiving any substantial feature development as of now. Commons could set up some bots to handle the sync of the .{languageCode}.srt pages.

Is it just changing the name of the pages? I could try to look at that next week

Its a relatively simple change. but {languageCode}.srt is more standard way to represent file names of subtitles. i.e if you wanted to download the subtitle file we would have to remap things for the name to make sense on your file system. 

How much work would it be to special case the TimedText namespace in the translate extension?

Sorry I realize my comment is sort of a loop of what I previously mentioned on thread. If consensus is .srt/{languageCode} lets just do that. 

Bawolff in reviewing / implementation consider download links such as these:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=TimedText:Fra_Mauro%27s_Map_of_the_World.ogv.en.srt&action=raw&ctype=text%2Fx-srt

the /{languageCode} should be mapped to before the .srt so that its a valid local srt file if possible.

We could just send content-disposition headers if it really matters.

As it stands, that sort of url would lead to an index.php filename I believe

In the context of the player we set: 

.attr( {
   'href': source.getSrc(),
   'download': fileName
})

Which browser use to trigger a download link with given file name. It would be a small change to parse the title check for timedText namespace, and re-arrange things so it has .srt extension. 

But just something to keep in mind.

(In reply to comment #13)
> In the context of the player we set: 
> 
> .attr( {
>    'href': source.getSrc(),
>    'download': fileName
> })
> 
> Which browser use to trigger a download link with given file name. It would
> be
> a small change to parse the title check for timedText namespace, and
> re-arrange
> things so it has .srt extension. 
> 
> But just something to keep in mind.

Actually, we can't directly make the url have an extension other than .php due to security bugs in safari and some version of ie, but that's kind of a separate problem

(In reply to Nemo from comment #8)
> (In reply to comment #7)
> > (Heck, I’m so desperate about this that I considered today enabling Translate
> > on a TimedText and use crazy redirects in the hope it would work :-þ)
> 
> Redirects? How about transclusion, did you try it?

I felt crazy enough today to try this:
* Translate cannot be enabled on the TimedText NS
* I created a fake page <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Chapters_Dialogue.webmhd.webm/srt>
* Transclusion does not work <https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=TimedText:Wikimedia_Chapters_Dialogue.webmhd.webm.fr.srt&oldid=131443712>
* Substing the transclusion does work. I’ll do that.

This workflow is getting me crazy: seems like all the pieces are here, and yet we jump through hoops. This is deeply frustrating :-(