Localise Software documentation

Below is a list of links documenting the localisation process for the selected software to be localised through the scope of this project.

General localisation guidelines

Introduction


  • Read through Translate.org.za's localization guide to get started. Refer to this documentation whenever you get stuck somewhere. You definitely need to read about these topics before you start:
    • Variables
    • Plurals
  • Changing the locale of your operating system.
    • Glibc locales (for Linux)
      • Check for your locale in the list of supported locales
      • Check Glibc locales guide if you want to add a new locale or fix existing ones.
    • Windows
      • Check the list of supported locales
      • Adding new locales (Link/Instructions needed here)

Terminology


  • to the localize-software team mailing list to discuss the terminology sources you will be using for your project:
    • If your team worked on Glossmaster, this should be the best starting point
    • If you have no terminology available for you language, inform the rest of the team, and someone might be able to point you to where you can find terminology for your language. The support team can put a template terminology file on Pootle for your language.
  • How to add terms to the existing terminology list?
    • If the terminology project in Pootle has an untranslated term, you can translate it like with any other translation project. Just search for the term and add the translation. Be sure to discuss this with your team.
    • To add a term that is not currently in the terminology project, contact the support team for help.
    • Instructions needed here
    • If you unsure of a term, do not add it
  • Verb-noun ambiguities? (Instructions needed here)

Translation

Online using Pootle


  • Get a Pootle account
  • Check the Pootle user guide.
  • Pootle can provide terminology help while translating online.

Offline


  • Download the .po or .pot files for the open source applications you will be localizing from the Pootle server.
  • Translate using any CAT tool you are familiar with, but we recommend that you use Virtaal (available for Windows and Linux users) or Poedit (for Mac OS X users).
  • Check the Virtaal user guide.
  • Integrate terminology, how? Instructions needed here
  • You will need to upload your translations to the Pootle server at the project that you downloaded it from.
    • Go to the project's page on pootle (say, Firefox 3.6) and click on your language link.
    • Then you'll find an "upload file" block in the upper right corner of the page.
    • Click on browse button and select files from your computer and upload it.
    • Files can be individual PO files or a ZIP containing collection of PO files.

Translating from a different source language

Pootle
If members of your team has better skills in another language than English (like French or Arabic), Pootle can display a translation while translating. More information available here

Virtaal
Virtaal doesn't currently support using different source language, but you can get around this:

  • Download the complete French translation from Pootle, and the PO files for your language.
  • Swap the English-based PO files to French-based PO files using the Translate Toolkit tool "poswap".
  • Then translate the French-based PO files offline in Virtaal.
  • After finishing the translation, you can swap back the files to English using "poswap" with the --reverse option.

Review


  • Can be done after uploading your translation back on Pootle server.
  • Pootle's Quality Checks
    • Read about Pootle's translation checks
    • Some tests are crucial (some translation mistakes can break Firefox). It is very important that you perform all these tests. They are:
      • accelerators: Accelerators are the underlined letters in application's user interface, and are used to access action by keyboard shortcuts. In Firefox accelerators are marked by '&', as in "&File", and the translation must contain an '&' as well. You can but the '&' before any letter in your translation, just make sure it doesn't conflict with other items and is easily accessible in the keyboard.
      • printf
      • variables
      • xmltags

(other tests are important, but more cosmetic)

  • You can use Pootle's search feature (in the upper right side of the page) to search for specific string, by clicking on the arrow next to search field you can choose to search the source text or the target (translation) text. Pootle doesn't provide a search & replace functionality, though.

Testing


  • Install the software and go through all menus, dialogues, installer, etc.
  • Reach out to the community for wider testing and feedback

Resources


  • You can download and install keyboards and fonts for your language from here.
  • to the localise-software team should you have any special needs.

How to get help


  • to the localise-software team mailing list.

Fennec localisation documentation

Fennec depends largely on Firefox translation, so you've to do Firefox translation first, see firefox localisation documentation for details.

  • Start translating Fennec, either in:
    • Pootle, or download PO files to translate from there, see general localisation guidelines for more details. After doing the translation, you can get Mozilla l10n files from XXX for submitting to Mozilla repository.
    • or you can do the conversion to and from PO files yourself, refer to post for more details.
  • Commit your file to the repository.
  • Request adding your locale to all-locales by filing a bug.
  • Make sure your locale appears in the dashboard and fix any reported issues.
  • Check the nightly builds for testing.

Firefox localisation documentation

  • Check existing Mozilla localisation teams in Mozilla wiki, if there is no team for your language register a team by creating a new wiki page with the category L10n:Teams following this example, replacing 'af' with your language code .
  • You need to sign the Committer's Agreement. Complete instructions are available on that page.
  • Start translating Firefox on-line on Pootle, or download the translation files and translate them off-line using Virtaal, check general localisation guidelines for more details. The translation files on Pootle are prioritised:
    • first milestone: user1 and user2 phases
    • second milestone: user3, user4, config1 and config2 phases
    • third milestone: finish the rest of the translation and review all Pootle automated checks.
  • For testing your translation, download the language packs.
    • Install the language pack as regular Firefox extensions
    • Install the locale switcher extension to switch Firefox to your language
    • Use your translated version as much as possible, and try to review menu, dialogue box, error message, etc. Also check for dialogue boxes that might need to be enlarged and ask for help on how to do that.
  • After finishing the first milestone, register at addons.mozilla.org, submit the language pack to appear under the category for language packs and encourage users to test it and give feedback.
  • Create an account on Mozilla's bug tracking system for feature requests and bug reports.
  • When the translation is complete:
    • File a registration bug to get official builds for your language. Fill in the summary and description with information about your language and your team.
    • File a bug report, to get write access to Mozilla source code repository for submitting your translations directly. Fill in the summary and description with information about your language.
      • At this stage you should have signed the Committer's Agreement for this bug report to succeed
      • You also need to attach your translation to the bug report for review
  • After committing the files to Mozilla repository:
    • Check the dashboard to see if your language builds correctly, and fix any problems.
    • Get the daily localized builds from Mozilla ftp site for testing and reviewing
  • At this stage your translation is almost done, and you will need check the final pieces of the localisation, which include choosing the best default search engine for your locale, Google snippets, etc. Check Firefox Productization page for more details.
  • Web pages: check Firefox's In-Product Pages and its L10n requirements.

Resources:

  • https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Create_a_new_localization
  • https://wiki.mozilla.org/L10n
  • https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox3/L10n_Requirements
  • partial-translations

Pootle localisation documentation

Pootle is a web based system for translation and translation management. Read more about Pootle here. he translation work for Pootle involves about 1500 words.

To translate the user interface of Pootle, follow these steps:

  • Visit the Pootle server
  • Register an account
  • Activate the account by following the instructions in the e-mail that you receive
  • Set up your preferences by selecting your languages and the appropriate projects that you will be working on.

If your language is not available yet, ask for it to be added on the ANLoc "localise software" mailing list. If your language is not listed on this page, mention it on the mailing list so that the necessary information about plural forms can be worked out.

  • From the front page or from your account page, click on the project and language combination that you want to work on. To translate Pootle, select the project called "Pootle", and your language. Here you can see the progress so far.
  • Activate the editing functions to find all the available actions
    • "Quick Translate" will take you to all the translations that need attention
    • "Show Checks" will show possible translation errors that you might want to review. For more information on what these checks mean, see the documentation
    • The download action will allow you to translate offline using Virtaal. To get your offline translations back onto Pootle, select the translated file in the upload dialogue, and check that the statistics for the files is correct after your upload. Remember to review the quality checks again.

If you selected your language when logging in (or in your preferences), you should see the translations updated while you translate.

For more information on how to use Pootle, visit the Pootle website or join the Pootle mailing list to ask any questions and to learn from the discussions. If your translation is reasonably complete, it will automatically form part of the next Pootle release.

Virtaal localisation documentation

Virtaal is a program to help you translate even if you don't have an internet connection. Read more about Virtaal here. Download and install Virtaal to become familiar with its features and how it works. The translation work for Virtaal involves about 1500 words.

To translate the user interface of Virtaal, follow these steps:

If your language is not available yet, ask for it to be added on the ANLoc "localise software" mailing list. If your language is not listed on this page, mention it on the mailing list so that the necessary information about plural forms can be worked out.

  • Go to the project for Virtaal in your language.
  • You can translate the user interface for Virtaal on Pootle, but it would be best to actually use Virtaal to ensure you get to know it well.
  • Activate the editing functions, and download the PO files to your computer
  • Open the file in Virtaal and activate the "Incomplete" mode which will take you to all translations that need attention.
  • Save the files and upload it to Pootle
  • Review the quality checks on Pootle

For more information on how to use Virtaal, visit the Virtaal website, or join the Virtaal mailing list to ask any questions and to learn from the discussions. If your translation is reasonably complete, it will automatically form part of the next Virtaal release.

If you want to test your translation (by running Virtaal in your language), ask for help on the Virtaal mailing list or on the IRC channel (#pootle on irc.freenode.net) on how to install the translation.

As part of translating Virtaal, you will be translating a small part of GTK+ which contains some basic translations used in several programs. Although we will publish these translations with Virtaal, you should contribute it to the main GTK+ project. Some more instructions are available here.