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<chapter>
<title>Translations</title>
<para>
The &opie;-Project tries to offer the support for as many languages
as possible. In this chapter the process of translating &opie; and its
documentation is explained.
</para>
<para>
To ensure that &opie; can be used by as many people as possible the
&opie;-project aims to be translated in as many languages as possible. Of
course, as there are so many different languages, there is always a lot
work to do. Furthermore, &opie; evolves and thus most likely there are
translations for applications which should be updated. In this tutorial
you will learn how to help &opie; to be available in as many languages as
possible and see how easy it is to give something very much respected to
the open-source community.
</para>
<section>
<title>Preferences</title>
<para>
In order to translate for &opie; you need an editor to edit the
translationfile and preferably access to cvs. The preferred editor
is Linguist. That is an application which comes with &qt;. It has a
intuitive GUI and is very easy to use. A tutorial can be found <ulink
url="http://doc.trolltech.com/3.1/linguist-manual-3.html">here</ulink>.
</para>
<para>
However, you can use every editor which works with UTF8, for example VIM or
EMACS. The advantage of Linguist is that its GUI is optimized for &opie;s
translationfiles and can help you by proposing a translation and warn
you if there is an error within the translation.
</para>
<para>
CVS is a tool which the developers and most translators use to get the source
of &opie;. If you already have an anonymous account for the &opie;-cvs you
should go to <filename class='directory'>OPIEDIR/i18n</filename> and do
- <programlisting>cvs up</programlisting>. If there is already a translation for the language you would like to
+
+ <programlisting>cvs up</programlisting>
+
+ If there is already a translation for the language you would like to
translate you will see the language code in that directory. For example,
for german this is <programlisting>de</programlisting> and for danish it is
- <programlisting>da</programlisting>. If not, you should contact the coordinator
+
+ <programlisting>da</programlisting>
+
+ If not, you should contact the coordinator
<personname><firstname>Carsten</firstname><surname>Niehaus</surname></personname>
so that everything will be set up for your language.
</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>Styleguide</title>
<para>
To ensure a high quality of the translations the translatiors have to keep certain things
in mind.
</para>
<itemizedlist mark='opencircle'>
<listitem>
<para>
The applications do not speak to the user. This means that for example it should not
be <errortext>I didn't find the file!</errortext> but <errortext>File not found!</errortext>.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Try not to use exclamationmarks. If the users sees them to often the ! looses it function
as a amplifier of a warning.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Don't put a space in front of a punctuation mark. So write eg "this is a demonstation!" instead
of "this is a demonstation !".
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</section>
<section>
<title>Examplecode</title>
<para>
In the next paragraph you see an example of what the XML looks like.
</para>
<!--
<programlisting>
<message>
<source>New</source>
<translation>Neu</translation>
</message>
<message>
<source>Today</source>
<translation>Heute</translation>
</message>
<message>
<source>Day</source>
<translation type="unfinished"></translation>
</message>
</programlisting>
-->
<para>
As you can see the markup is very simple. The part between two source-tags is
the english text which appears if there is no translation yet. In the first
case this is <quote>New</quote>. The next row is where the translated string
would be. The first two messages are already translated, the third is
- not. This is marked by the <programlisting>type="unfinished"</programlisting>.
+ not. This is marked by the
+
+ <programlisting>type="unfinished"</programlisting>
+
</para>
<para>
If you choose to use an editor like VIM instead of the prefered tool
-Linguist- you have to remove that mark and add the translated string
- between the two <programlisting>translation</programlisting>-tags.
+ between the two translation-tags.
</para>
<para>
- It might happen that you see <programlisting>type="obsolete"</programlisting> in a
+ It might happen that you see <emphasis>type="obsolete"</emphasis> in a
.ts-file. You should not translate these stings as they do no longer appear in the
application. The translationcoordinator removes those strings from time to time. In
Linguist those strings are grey and not translatable.
</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>Filetypes</title>
<para>
As a translator one needs to know three different filetypes.
<filename class='extension'>ts</filename>
.ts-files are the most important files for translators. In these files are all strings which
need to be translated and the translations themselfs. All .ts-files are located in
<filename class='directory'>OPIEDIR/i18n/xx</filename> while xx is a languagecode (eg. de or de).
In theory .ts-files are the only ones a translator needs to know.
<filename class='extension'>pro</filename>
Every application has a .pro-file from which the Makefiles are generated. As a translator
you need to check if in every .pro-file is a line for the language you want to translate to.
This line should look like::
<programlisting>
../../../i18n/de/today.ts \
</programlisting>
Usually the translationcoordinator takes care of these entries so you should not
need to edit them.
<filename class='extension'>qm</filename>
These are binary files used by &opie; to display the translated strings. They are
automatically generated by calling the command <command>make lrelease</command>. Of course,
you need to have the binary of <application>lrelease</application> which comes with &qt;.
</para>
</section>
<section>
<title>Do's and don'ts</title>
<para>
There are certain things that should only be done be the
translationcoordinator or one of the core developers.
<itemizedlist mark='opencircle'>
<listitem>
<para>
The translationfiles should never be updated by the translators. Only the
translationcoordinator updates the repository. This is to avoid merging conflicts.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
The binary .qm-files are created by either the translationcoordinator or by the feed-manager.
Of course, the translators can create them as described above for testing purposes but
the official files will be provided.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Whenever you find a typo or an incorrect message, contact the author of the application
and/or use our bug tracking system (Mantis) to make sure this string will be fixed.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
If you find a string like "Form1" contact the translation coordinator. These strings
should not be in the translationfiles. You don't need to translate them.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
If you check you translation and see an un-translated string even though your translationfile
is 100% translated use the bug tracking system and/or contact the author of that application
directly so that this bug is fixed.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
</section>
</chapter>