Fhem for non-German speakers ?

[stefaanv]

Hi,

I'm new to Fhem but got very interested after reading the introduction on the main website.
My German, however, is very bad.  Is it possible for non-German speakers to get Fhem up-and-running ?  Does anyone have experience ?
I found a 76 pages "Getting started guide" (in German) on the website, does something similar exist in English ?
Can anyone point me to good English (or Dutch) documentation ?

Stefaan

[fruit]

I'm English and have no German at all (much too old for that now) and running fhem for a couple of months, so it's certainly possible.
I started with the same German guide you mention I think, translating a section at a time into English using google. It's good enough to make sense of.
Have you checked the main fhem page? It links to HowTos and other pages in English. commandref is also available in English as are a few of the wiki pages. For the rest and the forum I copy into google translate.

Posts here are sometimes moved to more appropriate places and generally answered in English

[oliv06]

Same for me. I have been using FHEM for a year and I do not speak german at all. I use google to translate when necessary but that's not very efficient.

I have written a few posts on my blog (in french! http://play.with.free.fr/index.php/tag/fhem/ ) so anybody speaking french will find information. I try to keep it updated with new tips I find in order to remind them, because it is possible to loose a lot of time with fhem and perl syntax...

If anybody else is interested, it would be fine to translate part of the wiki and  the  "Getting started guide" in english.

[UliM]

Hi all,
the beginners guide doesn't exist in english yet.  Two months ago I sent the original doc to someone in Southafrica who wanted to translate it, but haven't had any more news.
However, someone started translating it to dutch, maybe that can helkp when it's done
Should anyone be willing to invest the wiork of translating it into english, I'd offer to provide the original word-doc as a basis, also I'd take care of publishing it on the fhem webpage.


Otherwise, all original documentation to fhem is in english, espcially the command-refrence explaing all available modules: http://fhem.de/commandref.html
Installation instructions etc can all be found on fhem.de which is fully available in english.

Posting questions in english in folders other than the one named "English Corner" is also welcome - just go ahead, you will receive answers in english.

Have fun with fhem,
Uli

[Patrocks]

Uli,

I would be able to put some time into translating your beginners guide.  Can you pm it to me?

Regards

Pat.

[Rince]

What about posting the guide in the wiki for translation?
So anyone can translate a little bit?

My English is bad for sure, but surely better than Google translate

[fruit]

I think it would be very useful to have a translation available. It is an excellent work and helped me understand things in the beginning - I still refer to it now.

I do think it's important to have at least some translation input from a German speaker. As already noted, google makes a mess of some phrases/terms.

Updating for new versions would be nice, but a lot of work I expect. I feel most would be grateful for an English version so less of an issue - as is the case for Floorplan.

I have a very roughly tidied translation paragraph by paragraph via google in .odt extracted fom the pdf (no MSWord here) for anyone serious about translating, if it's any use, but it's from a d/l in September I think - at least two versions ago?

[oliv06]

What about posting the guide in the wiki for translation?
So anyone can translate a little bit?

My English is bad for sure, but surely better than Google translate

It is a good idea in my opinion because it may also be corrected by others more easily.

[UliM]

@fruit: Can you pls get in touch with Patrocks as he started that translation task.

@all: Shared translation is a great idea, however the whole thing is available as word.docx as an original, not sure what would happen to formatting when wiki-ing it. And without that formatting, I think readability would be impacted strongly.
Updates have not been extensive in the past year or so - except in the Homematic-appendix.

For now, I'm looking forward what Pat comes up with. IShould he ask for support, I'd suggest to rather split the word-doc and have different chapters translated separately, then put them together again, rather than wiki-ing it.

Can you agree?

Merry xmas everyone,
Uli

[fruit]

@fruit: Can you pls get in touch with Patrocks as he started that translation task.

Done.

[Prof. Dr. Peter Henning]

Sorry for being rather blunt, but I consider this "English corner" rather obsolete. Actually, most of the FHEM developers are technically oriented people, and therefore well trained in reading and writing English text. This is also obvious from the large number of contributions that have been moved to other places by Rudolf Koenig.

I therefore suggest to any non-German speaker: don't be shy, post your contributions (or questions) in English into any of the special places here in the Forum - it is much more likely to get an answer there than here.

Regards

pah

[Rince]

Although this has nothing to do with the translation task, maybe pah is right.
Perhaps letting the english corner alive, but with a pinnend thread and pah's invitation to use the normal forum.

[createch2]

Sorry for being rather blunt, but I consider this "English corner" rather obsolete. Actually, most of the FHEM developers are technically oriented people, and therefore well trained in reading and writing English text. This is also obvious from the large number of contributions that have been moved to other places by Rudolf Koenig.

I therefore suggest to any non-German speaker: don't be shy, post your contributions (or questions) in English into any of the special places here in the Forum - it is much more likely to get an answer there than here.

Regards

pah

Frankly, the german forum section can't maintain his attitude then.
A new member requesting help there is gonna be shot immediately by a moderator if he has not read the beginners guide or can't help himself by reading it. "Puschel74" jumps directly in to blame you, just waiting for some other people to applaude him.
Have a look here: http://forum.fhem.de/index.php/topic,20483.0.html
or here: http://forum.fhem.de/index.php/topic,20397.0.html

So I'd appreciate to keep the english forum section without having a translated beginners guide.
Maybe also native germans can get help here.

[fruit]

So I'd appreciate to keep the english forum section without having a translated beginners guide.

In my opinion the English section is important as a starting area for newcomers to post. It can be a daunting experience posting on a forum which is mainly in a language one doesn't speak. I'm sure that's how many non-English speakers feel toward the many English language forums too.

In the few months I've been here posts have often been moved to their appropriate sub-forums where the those with relevant knowledge are more likely to see and respond. It might be nice to retain links for those coming later rather than moving threads completely but I don't think we can expect that

I believe the English version of the beginner's guide is being worked on though I've heard nothing from the volunteer for a long time.

[UliM]

So I'd appreciate to keep the english forum section without having a translated beginners guide.
Maybe also native germans can get help here.

Hi,
as much as I can understand your frustration, you should also try to understand the frustraion of others.
Puschel is really helpful - it's not by chance that he's moderating the beginners section.
However, those trying to help expect some effort on the side of the requester. Seen that all support is for free, I personally think that's fair.

Of course you cannot know that literally a hundred people before you showed the attitude of 'dump a question' without showing the courtesy of checking existing docu, check for spelling, making their questions easy to read, providing proper examples etc.  But it did happen. I agree the comment from Puschel74 may seem harsh, but it's just an expression of his frustration - like this post is an expression of yours.

Please reconsider the topic, and maybe you'll come to the conclusion that it won't make much of a difference if you raise your questions in english or german.  It's rather a matter of form than of language

Keep fhem'ing,
Uli