Version 10

TranslationTutorial

a guide on how to translate bitweaver into your language

Created by: laetzer, Last modification: 16 Oct 2008 (04:18 UTC) by laetzer

Bitweaver has a unique translation interface. You can translate strings here on bitweaver.org, and then export them from here to import them to your own site.

How to get started

To translate Bitweaver to another language than English, please contact us through this form thread or drop by IRC to get someone to give you the appropriate permissions.

Languages menu

As soon as you are member of the group Translators, you can access a language menu which gives you several new options:
  • Edit Languages: gives you access to all available languages and their descriptions
  • Import/Export: access the available languages, and import or export them
  • Master Strings: list of all English master strings, the references for the translated strings

Translation procedure


Translating

Go to Languages > Edit Languages and select the language you want to translate bitweaver into. The button Edit Translation will take you to a listing of the English master strings. For each master string there is a text box. If you understand the context and know how to translate the text, go ahead and translate it.

Origin of master strings

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to work out the context of where the master string has originated from. On bitweaver.org, try going to your personal preferences page and set the site language to the language you want to translate to. This way, it's easier to spot untranslated strings as well strings that don't match the context.

Translating a specific string

When you spot a string that needs modifying or updating, you can go to the same page as described above and then search for the string using the search box on the edit translations page.

Typos

Typos (or multiple strings with similar content in general) can't be avoided, due to the continuous development of Bitweaver. Certain strings will always have to be updated slightly, which is done in the templates themselves (e.g., /wiki/templates/edit.tpl). On bitweaver.org, the feature record untranslated strings is enabled, which causes the insertion of such strings in the database. This can result in many similar strings, while only one of them is actually used. For instance, say, this string:
  • Press this button to be happyy, has been updated to
  • Press this button to be happy. If the first string was already translated, it would have been translated without typos, and so the translation is correct. Now if the typo is adjusted in the template file itself (e.g., buttonform.tpl), the string will appear untranslated, as the translation belonged to a slightly different master string, which originated from a faulty template. That means, to avoid translating twice, the Master String has to be updated in the database to reflect the change in the template: go to the Master Strings page and search for the old string, edit it, insert the new string, and save. After clearing the language cache, all the translations will work correctly.

Importing and exporting

Once the translation has been completed, export the language file by visiting the Import/Export page. Pick the language you translated to export and save the file to your server. Then, visit the Import/Export on your server, select the correct language in the import section and import that file.

Creating a new language

Go to edit languages (a submenu of Languages) where you can see all available languages. If your language or localisation does not exist, click Create Language, and fill in the required information. Then, proceed as shown above.

Translation notes

If you come accross {curly brackets}, please copy them and their contents into your translation string. Try to work out where in the text this part should go. Please maintain any HTML formatting which is present. As an example, a master string like
  • A gallery named {displayname}'s Gallery will be created for you and images will be added to it, would be translated to
  • Die Galerie {displayname}s Galerie wird erstellt und Bilder hinzugefĆ¼gt, if the language was German. Note how curly brackets (and HTML code, if in place) are preserved. The curly brackets enclose the displayname of a given user, in this example. This means you can simply treat the string in curly brackets as a regular name.

Language-specific notes

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