Friedel en ander frappanthede

The Translate project has been working very hard on the upcoming release of Pootle for the last year, and things are looking great for the upcoming release. We recently released beta-4, and things are getting close to release quality. Kudos to Alaa and Wynand who did most of the work. We also had contributions from several other companies and individuals. There are loads of improvements since version 1.2, but I wanted to write specifically about some improvements to the user interface that translators and localisation managers will enjoy.

Yes, the rumour is true: we got rid of the Pootle mascot (known to some as the potato man). He served us loyally for a few years, but we are happy to see him go as we say goodbye to the days of the old Pootle.

In fact, there is a completely new look. Have a sneak peak on our testing server. Many people have worked on making this happen, including people from Mozilla, Manal Hassan and Julen Ruiz Aizpuru. In fact, Julen has now become the most active contributor to our user interface. I think it looks much more modern and pretty, and presents a lot of functionality much better.

The front page now has much more information. It actually gives a complete overview of things happening on the server. This idea came from the contributors at Mozilla. It also provides a summary of the top contributors on the server, and similar summaries are displayed on several sub-pages of the server.

Administrators will find far more of the configuration options in the web interface. Previously some options could only be found in the configuration files. It will also be easier to find some of the admin pages from the projects that they relate to.

A feature that I'm very excited about, is a better organisation of the activities in the project view. Pootle's quality checks are loved by all its users, but it has been a bit hidden. Things are now separated into divisions that will make more sense for the users.

All of this promises a very exciting release of Pootle. Join us now in the final stretch to make it happen.