| Authors: |
Stefane Fermigier
Marc-Aurèle Darche |
|---|
| Revision: |
howto-translate_cps.txt 45720 2006-05-18 15:27:26Z madarche |
|---|
Abstract
This document gives some background information and tips
on translating CPS .po files.
Each CPS product has an i18n directory containing all pot/po files
plus some others. All of them should be translated.
PO file (.po file): PO stands for "Portable Object". PO files
contain sets of strings which associate each translatable string
with its translation in a particular language. A single PO file
relates to only one language. A PO file is derived from a POT file
and is edited either by hand or using KBabel.
POT file (.pot file): POT stands for "Portable Object Template". A
POT file is built by extracting all the translatable strings from
application source files. A POT file does not contain translations
into any particular language. It is used by the translators as a
template.
Message ID: msgid is the keyword which introduces the original
string in a PO file. It is followed by a C-like string that spans
one or more lines.
Message String: msgstr is the keyword which introduces the
translated string in PO file. It is followed by C-like string that
spans on one or multiple lines.
Fuzzy translation: This is a flag generated, in general, by
msgmerge. It shows that a msgstr string might not be a correct
translation. The translator must see and make modifications to the
string if necessary and then remove the "fuzzy" flag from the
message's comment.
See:
- .config_pot: Holds the name of the pot file which contains all
strings.
- .blacklist_pot: Holds the path to pot files from other
products so that you can use their msgids without having them
duplicated in your own pot file. Put a relative path per line.
- custom.pot: Contains dynamic strings which i18n tools can't
extract automatically: text inside Python modules or scripts,
text generated into scripts or templates...
To start your translation, make a copy of the master pot file.
(This copy must be named according to i18n rules: en.po or
en_US.po and not EN.po, en_us.po or en-US.po. Case and underscore
are important.)
Next, add your language in CPSDefault's custom.pot file. There's a
Languages paragraph and the msgid will be like
label_language_en_US.
Then add your language to the language vocabulary defined in
CPSDocument/skins/cps_document/getDocumentVocabularies.py.
There are three keys to add: the first one is the i18n label, the
same that you used to name your po file; the second one is how you
name your language in your own language -- note how some strings
are not to be translated; the third one is the msgid you used in
CPSDefault's custom.pot file, it will be used when the vocabulary
gets translated.
If you use CPS < 3.4, you will also need to modify the file
CPSDefault/zmi/manage_addCPSSiteForm.dtml. There's a Languages
box which contains a list of two element tuples. Add a new tuple
for your language. The first element will be the i18n label and
the second your language name in English.
Now you can start translating message strings. You should use
dedicated tools and should not handle it by hand so you will
avoid most common mistakes.
Updating the translations from the translation files can be done through the
portal_setup tool (located at the root of your CPS instance in the ZMI) by
importing the needed steps from the Import tab.
If the translations you are doing only affect the CPSDefault, CPSSchemas,
CPSDocument, CPSDirectory, CPSNavigation, CPSPortlets, and CPSSkins products,
then you need to import the Localizer step from the CPS Default Site
profile:
portal_setup -> Import -> Select Localizer -> Select CPS Default Site -> Import selected steps
If the translations you are doing also affect other products you will need, just
the same, to select the profile for each of these products and import their
Localizer step.
Alternatively one can also use the old way (read the next section) but it may
not be working anymore anytime.
Updating the translations from the translation files can be done through an
external method. Go to the ZMI and select the i18n Updater (located at the
root of the CPS instance). Then select the Test tab.
If this external method does not exist you may try to create it with the
following parameters:
Id: i18n Updater
Title: i18n Updater
Module Name: CPSDefault.cpsinstall
Function Name: cps_i18n_update
Open up a ticket in trac https://svn.nuxeo.org/trac/pub/newticket
with "i18n" as keyword and your translations bundled in a TAR GZ or ZIP
archive as a file attachment.
You can use the account tracguest/tracguest if you haven't an account already.
KBabel runs under any Unix flavor where KDE is ported, which
includes Cygwin for Windows.
Xemacs has a po mode, hard to use, but very useful.
GTranslator: Runs under any Unix flavor where Gnome is ported.
poEdit: Runs under Linux and Windows (http://poedit.sourceforge.net/).
First, be sure you use the most up-to-date .po files. That is, make sure that
you are getting the .po files from the last CPS release source archive or,
better, that you are using them from a fresh SVN checkout
http://svn.nuxeo.org/trac/pub/browser/ . The rationale is that the files on
which you are working have certainly been modified (and sometimes fixed) since
they have been released or that you have downloaded them, even if you are an
official translator for a given language. This is because we use an automatic
updater on all .po files.
Never add a string outside custom.pot files. It would break
our updater, and consequently delay the addition of your po files.
For the same reason, do not use Localizer to export your files.
Look at the context. The best way is to check where msgids appear
in the site, then look at the msgid context in the product (po
files and skins). If you have doubts, you can, in this order,
check en.po, check another po file that you understand, then ask
the CPS translators list <cps-translators@lists.nuxeo.com>.
Once your translation is done and uploaded into CPS, test it
against non-technical people, which are the common audience for
CPS. This is necessary to make sure you don't use terms that are
too technical or too abstract.
For some odd reason, we cannot currently use UTF-8; so we have
fallen back to ISO 8859-15 encoding (latin9). Since it will be the
default encoding sent by CPS's main template, set it accordingly
in your po editor. Diacritics signs (accents) or uncommon
punctuation will be replaced by strange characters if you do not
use the same encoding as ours... We know this sucks and we will
use UTF-8 again as soon as possible. (TODO then add a note in the
software section about the "recode" tool.)
If you are in doubt about another translation you are using for
inspiration, ask the mailing list so you can contact the upstream
translator or people speaking that language.
Action names or page title:
- Modify/Modification not Edit/Edition
- Delete not Erase
Form actions (buttons):
- (button_change) Save changes not Modify/Change/Validate
- (button_apply) Apply not Change/View
- (button_update) Update for a pop-up that update a field not Save
- button_change not button_edit
- (button_delete) Delete not Erase
Others:
- e-mail not mail/email
- metadata not meta-data
If you want to add or fix something in this document, please join
the list of CPS translators <cps-translators@lists.nuxeo.com>.
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