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[squirrelmail.git] / doc / translating.txt
1 How to translate SquirrelMail into another language?
2 ====================================================
3
4 This document does not deal with CVS and how to upload translations to
5 the repository.
6
7 1. First time translation
8 -------------------------
9
10 a) You must have gettext installed. If it is not installed you can
11 download the sources from
12 <URL:ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/gettext/>.
13
14 b) Find the language code for the language you are going to translate
15 into. A list of language codes can be found at
16 <URL:http://lcweb.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/langhome.html>. If
17 there is a 2 letter code for the language, use this.
18
19 Create a directory squirrelmail/locale/language_code/LC_MESSAGES/.
20 Copy squirrelmail/po/squirrelmail.pot into this directory and rename
21 it to squirrelmail.po. This is the file that is going to be translated.
22
23 c) To translate the actual strings fill in the msgstr after each
24 msgid with the appropriate translation. There are a few tools which
25 can make this job a bit easier at
26 <URL:http://i18n.kde.org/translation-howto/specialized-programs.html#gui-tools>.
27
28 Convert the translated squirrelmail.po into a binary file by
29 running the command "msgfmt -o squirrelmail.mo squirrelmail.po" in
30 the directory where the translated squirrelmail.po is residing.
31
32 d) Add the language name and language code to the array at the top of
33 squirrelmail/functions/i18n.php.
34
35 There is also a small script in the po/ directory that can help in
36 creating charset mappings from the mappings files that are provided by
37 the Unicode consortium.
38
39 2. Maintaining translations
40 ---------------------------
41
42 The text strings in the program will change over time. This means that
43 strings that are already translated are no longer used and new strings
44 are added. Therefore it is necessary to maintain the translations.
45
46 a) There should always be an updated template containing all strings
47 in SquirrelMail in squirrelmail/po/squirrelmail.pot. To merge all new
48 strings in this file into an existing translation run the command
49
50 msgmerge squirrelmail/locale/language/LC_MESSAGES/squirrelmail.po \
51 squirrelmail/po/squirrelmail.pot > \
52 squirrelmail/locale/language/LC_MESSAGES/squirrelmail.po.new
53
54 This should keep all strings that are unchanged and comment out all
55 strings that are no longer in use. You might want to make a copy
56 before doing this.
57
58 SquirrelMail contains po/mergepo script that can merge strings without need
59 to write that complex msgmerge command. Just put your translation name as
60 option.
61
62 b) Run msgfmt again to create a new binary file.
63
64
65 3. Updating the template
66 ------------------------
67
68 SquirrelMail provides po/xgetpo script that extracts all the required
69 strings and updates po/squirrelmail.pot file.
70
71
72
73 $ Id: $