--- /dev/null
+How to translate SquirrelMail into another language?
+====================================================
+
+This document does not deal with CVS and how to upload translations to
+the repository.
+
+1. First time translation
+-------------------------
+
+a) You must have gettext installed. If it is not installed you can
+ download the soources from
+ <URL:ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/gettext/>.
+
+b) Find the language code for the language you are going to translate
+ into. A list of language codes can be found at
+ <URL:http://www.dsv.su.se/~jpalme/ietf/language-codes.html>.
+
+ Create a directory squirrelmail/locale/language_code/LC_MESSAGES/.
+ Copy squirrelmail/po/squirrelmail.po into this directory. This is the
+ file that is going to be translated.
+
+c) To translate the actual strings fill inn the msgstr after each
+ msgid with the appropiate translation. There are a few tools which
+ kan make this job a bit easier at
+ <URL:http://i18n.kde.org/translation-howto/gui-specialized-apps.html>.
+
+ Convert the translated squirrelmail.po into a binary file by
+ running the command "msgfmt -o squirrelmail.mo squirrelmail.po" in
+ the directory where the translated squirrelmail.po is residing.
+
+d) Add the language name and language code to the array at the top of
+ squirrelmail/functions/i18n.php.
+
+
+2. Maintaining translations
+---------------------------
+
+the text strings in the program will change over time. This means that
+strings that are already translated is no longer used and new strings
+are added. Therefore it is neccessary to maintain the translations.
+
+a) There should always be an updated template containing all strings
+ in SquirrelMail in squirrelmail/squirrelmail.po. To merge all new
+ strings in this file into an existing translation run the command
+
+msgmerge squirrelmail/locale/language/LC_MESSAGES/squirrelmail.po \
+squirrelmail/po/squirrelmail.po > \
+squirrelmail/locale/language/LC_MESSAGES/squirrelmail.po
+
+ This should keep all strings that are unchanged and comment out all
+ strings that are no longer in use. You might want to make a copy
+ before doing this.
+
+b) Rung msgfmt again to create a new binary file.
+
+
+3. Updating the template
+------------------------
+
+This script comes from Serek:
+
+#!/bin/bash
+xgettext --keyword=_ -keyword=N_ --default-domain=squirrelmail/po/squirrelmail\
+-C squirrelmail/src/*.php
+xgettext --keyword=_ -keyword=N_ --default-domain=squirrelmail/po/squirrelmail\
+-C -j squirrelmail/functions/*.php
+