Help Wanted: Translating Timeline 3D

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

To better serve current and future BEEDOCS customers worldwide, we are in the process of making our software, help documentation, and web content available in multiple languages. A number of customers have already given us a great start in the process, so we wanted to invite you to help as well!

At this stage, we would particularly like to hear from native speakers/writers with translation experience in the following languages:

• Brazilian
• Portuguese
• Dutch
• French
• German
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Portuguese
• Russian
• Simplified Chinese
• Spanish
• Swedish

If you would like to help, email Lee Grooms (Localization Manager) at lee@beedocs.com with your languages and translation experience. We are interested in both volunteer and professional translators, but please no translation firms.

We also expect to have further opportunities for our global BEEDOCS community to assist our localization efforts, so please watch here for more updates!

Labels: localization, translation, volunteers

Release v2.3

Thursday, January 22, 2009

I just posted the v2.3 update to Bee Docs Timeline (both the Standard and 3D Editions). You can use the “Check for Updates” feature in the software to install it or download Bee Docs Timeline if you haven’t yet.

This release contains some important bug fixes for our international customers. Notably PDF export is now working properly in the German localization and “BC” dates are working properly in all of the international formats.

Also, the minus sign can now be used to indicate a BC date when eras are being used in any global date format. For example, a French customer may prefer to type “-50” instead of “50 av. J.-C.” (or 50 B.C.E.)

For the 3D Edition, this release adds a new feature to Export menu. You can now export still image sequences in a variety of formats. These are similar to the event images used in the Keynote export, but now you can save them directly to disk. One image will be created for each event with a 3D perspective.

Image sequences will be helpful for people who want bitmap images of their events to use with Powerpoint, Photoshop, etc... You could also save out a high resolution image sequence and order some of the images as prints from iPhoto or your favorite photo processor.

Last, but not least, I have improved the line quality for 3D exports. Carefully compare the following two examples to see the difference. This change affects all of the smaller video and 3D image exports (iPod, iPhone, HD 480p, etc...)

Detail of export from Bee Docs Timeline 3D v2.2.2:

Detail of export from Bee Docs Timeline 3D v2.3 (note better line quality):

Labels: export, image sequence, localization, timeline

French and German Localizations Released!

Thursday, May 29, 2008

A couple of days ago I posted Bee Docs' Timeline 2.1.1 (both the 3D and Standard Editions). I'm very excited to announce that the new versions include, among other things, French and German localizations. I have had many loyal and enthusiastic customers from Germany and France for a while now and it gives me great pleasure to be able to provide Bee Docs' Timeline in their native languages.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a request for help translating to these two languages and received so many volunteers that I had to turn a handful of people away. To do the translation work, I posted phrases that need translating in a Google Docs spreadsheet and my collaborators filled in the proper translation, often in real-time. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone that volunteered and helped!

I'm sure the translations aren't perfect yet and there are still a few missing phrases, so feel free to send me an e-mail if you see something that needs correction. In fact, I already have a stack of suggested corrections so I will try to make sure those get fixed in the next update. After the translations in the user interface are stabilized I will work on localizing the help documentation, website, and videos too.

I started with German and French because I already had a large number of existing customers in those countries, but I am definitely interested in localizing in more languages in the future. If you would be willing to volunteer to help translate to another language, please send me an e-mail (Adam at BeeDocuments dot com) and we'll get started!

Labels: french, german, languages, localization, timeline, volunteers

Bee Docs' Timeline in German and French

Friday, May 16, 2008

I am working hard to include German and French localizations of Bee Doc' Timeline in the next release, but I need your help to finish the work.

If you would like to volunteer to help translate some of the user interface labels to French or German, please send me an e-mail (Adam at BeeDocuments.com) and I will send you instructions on how you can help. Even if you only have time to translate a few phrases, it would be wonderful. Thanks!

Labels: french, german, localization, timeline, translation, volunteers