Tough_Crowd/translations

User Interface

Below are basic instructions for adding and maintaining Gettext translations for Diffuse. The installer will discover .po files in this directory and compile them into the corresponding .mo files.

The example commands below show how to create and manage the Japanese translations. Replace all instances of "ja" with the code for the desired language.

Creating a new translation

1. Create a .pot file for Diffuse:

    $ xgettext -s -o diffuse.pot -L Python ../src/usr/bin/diffuse
   

2. Create a .po file for the translation:

    $ msginit -l ja -o ja.po -i diffuse.pot
   

3. Manually complete in the translations in the .po file:

    $ vi ja.po
   

Updating an existing translation

1. Move the existing .po file:

    $ mv ja.po old.po
   

2. Create an empty .po file for the translation:

    $ xgettext -s -o diffuse.pot -L Python ../src/usr/bin/diffuse
    $ msginit -l ja -o empty.po -i diffuse.pot
   

3. Merge the old translations:

    $ msgmerge old.po empty.po -o ja.po
   

4. Clean up:

    $ rm old.po empty.po
   

5. Manually complete in the translations in the .po file:

    $ vi ja.po
   

Validate a translation

1. Attempt to compile the .po file and note any warnings:

    $ msgfmt -c -v ja.po
   

System Integration

Localised text for the system menu (name and comment) should be manually added to the desktop file:

../src/usr/share/applications/diffuse.desktop

Localised text for the Microsoft Windows installer is stored in separate ISL files. Copy the English version (../windows-installer/en.isl) and replace the text to the right of each equal sign.

Documentation

Documentation is stored in DocBook format. Start a new translation of the manual by copying the English version of the DocBook manual (../src/usr/share/gnome/help/diffuse/C/diffuse.xml) and then edit the contents.

The DocBook manual is converted to HTML for Windows and Unix man pages for POSIX platforms. The conversion tools insert some English text that gets localised using search and replace. Manually add new search and replace rules to these files:

../windows-installer/translations.txt
../utils/translations.txt

The format of each line is: <language id>:<English text>:<localised text>