Using Transifex

Revision as of 22:26, 8 September 2010

Go to http://meego.transifex.net and register. Once you have done that, select a language team to join. The lead for that team will then contact you and, if you agree on process for that language, you will be approved for that language team. If you don't see a team for your language, please consider starting it and being the lead, at least until you have critical mass.

Ideally, a language team should have a lead, at least 2 translators, and at least two editors/reviewers. It is essential that the same person that translates does not also review and approve their translation!

Once you've joined a language team, you can start translating! Transifex makes it easy for you to get the most up-to-date po file, translate, and post it back to the project.

Note: We have just recently moved from a "private" hosting of MeeGo po files (http://translate.moblin.org) to our new publicly-hosted site http://meego.transifex.net.

Note: We assume that you are familiar with po files, Linux, and character encoding. Most of the MeeGo Netbook UX are po files that are encoded with UTF-8. Please be sure that the Content-Type in the header of these PO files is "UTF-8." Going forward, MeeGo is also using qt and we are just now starting to understand what that means. Join the mailing list and attend the L10N IRC meetings to keep up with the latest. Transifex will indeed support qt very soon.

1. Once approved for a language team, choose a project from the MeeGo Hub. We will use bisho as an example. Click master under the "Project Component" heading.
2. If your language does not show in the list, you will need to download the English template, translate, and then submit as a new language. To do that, look under the heading “Translation Files” for the “Source File” followed by po/bisho.pot. This is the template you use. Click the little icon with the green arrow to download it.
3. Otherwise, if you see your language in the list, check the percentage of translation. If it is 100%, it has already been translated. If you are reviewing the translation, then click the second icon (with the little green downward pointing arrow). Be sure to lock the file so others know that it is in use. Review and edit the file, and then upload, using the icon with the upward pointing green arrow. Be sure to unlock the file after uploading it.
4. For MeeGo Netbook UX po files, we highly recommend using PO Edit to translate the file.

However, there are other applications that also get the job done. Lokalize (formerly known as KBabel) is a program from the KDE project that works on Linux. The biggest plus with this program is the translation memory. You can load other translations, such as the Gnome translations, in the memory and Lokalize suggests the translations when a similar translation exists. Very handy for consistency.

Starting a Translation

For those of you familiar with PO Edit and editing po files, skip the next 3 steps.

1. Open the bisho.pot file in PO Edit. In the Settings dialog, be sure to put your email address in the file heading (under “Last-Translator”) so we know who did the work and you get the recognition for doing it! Also, please be sure that the Content-Type in the header is "UTF-8." Make sure to enter this in the plural field to avoid corruptions and losing your work when you save: nplurals=2; plural=n!=1;
2. Save the settings you just entered.
3. Notice that there is a English string and right below it is msgstr “”. Put your translation of the English string inside those quotes.
4. You can name your new PO whatever you like on your local drive, but it’s better to use the same name as the file in Transifex for easy identification when you want to upload it back.
5. Go back to meego.transifex.net and go to the Bisho project.
6. Scroll down until you see your language. (If it does not appear in the list, you will need to click "Add a New Translation." See below.)
7. Select the last icon in the row of icons next to your language (the icon has a pencil in it and the mouse-over says "Submit a translation for po/xxx.po.")
8. Use the “Browse” button to find your local file and select it.
9. Click Send. If all goes well, you will see a message at the top of the screen that the po file was added successfully. You will also see your file appear in the list with the percentage of translation.
10. If you have any problems, send the issue to the mailing list.

Add a New Translation

If you are adding a new language for the first time to a project, click Add a new translation. The information that appears is pretty self-explanatory, but it is important to remember the following:

• Use the “Browse” button to find your local po file and select it.
• Ignore the "Select the target file" drop-down list, and enter "po/<languagecode>.po" in the "or enter it here" box.
• Finally, add some message that details what you did.
• Click Send. if all goes well, you will see a message at the top of the screen that the po file was added successfully.