Translation help

At Arabeyes we usually work on .po files. Po files are compilations of messages used in an application. We get them from the OSS project, host them on Arabeyes CVS servers[link] while we work on them, then give them back to the OSS project, and tada, we have an Arabic version of the software by the next version.

In general, you can work on a project by just contacting its maintainer, have a look here at the list of projects: It is however a good idea to subscribe to the mailing list so you can interact with the workflow.

To work on a file, you will need an application to assist you. If you use Windows, under Windows the best solutions is probably PoEdit. On Linux, the most used applications are KBabel and gTranslator, and PoEdit.

Po files

A po file may contain tens, hundreds or thousands of strings to translate. The translating application generally will help you by automatically translating some of them.

A string in a po file may be in three states. It can be untranslated, fuzzy or translated. An untranslated string needs a fresh translation. A fuzzy translation is usually done automatically by the computer, so in most cases it needs checking and correcting, you can also leave a string as fuzzy if you feel your translation is not correct, keep in mind, however, that somebody else will have to take more time to fix it :). The goal of course is to have all strings in the translated state.

Getting the Po files

Cvs or email

PoEdit (on windows)

Once you get a po file, or a collection of po files, you can either open each individually and translate it, or you can use the "Catalogs Manager" to important a folder. This is useful to keep track of all files and build a dictionary that will help you with automatic translation.

The following two screenshots show the main window and the catalogs window. A few untranslated strings (blue), fuzzy strings (yellow), and translated messages (white) appear.

[screeshots]

Submitting files back

Cvs or email.