In the following we assume that you are somewhat familiar with the structure and syntax of DocBook files. For further information on this format please have a look at the pages of the documentation team.
Generally speaking, you should just install KBabel and translate the PO file as already explained in the GUI section of this HOWTO. (Additionally you need the current version of the directories
l10n/templates/docmessages/
,
l10n/$LANGUAGE/docmessages/
,
l10n/$LANGUAGE/docs/
l10n/scripts/
and
l10n/documentation/(PACKAGE)/doc/
from SVN):
Since things keep changing (standards, formats, etc.) it is important to join the translators mailing list and to watch out for the announcements there.
If you start KBabel for the first time it will ask you for some user information that you should supply correctly. From this information the headers of the PO
files are automatically generated.
Remember to set -> ->-> to UTF-8 (8bit Unicode Transfer Format).
Additionally, you should enter the path to your PO files for the Catalog Manager (see next item) and probably also activate -> the Show surrounding quotes on the Appearance tab because otherwise you cannot see spaces at line ends.
First thing after you launch KBabel you should start the Catalog Manager with ->. The Catalog Manager shows you what documents exactly require work (fuzzies, untranslated strings and programs). For this to work you need a current copy of the directories l10n/templates/docmessages/
and l10n/$LANGUAGE/docmessages/
. Also you have to enter the path to these files in the KBabel settings.
If the Catalog Manager shows no translation for your program (i.e. there is no corresponding PO
file in l10n/$LANGUAGE/docmessages/(PACKAGE)
— and only in this case — on double click the POT
file is loaded into the editor and saved with the extension PO
in this same directory where this file is missing i.e. l10n/$LANGUAGE/docmessages/(PACKAGE)/(PROGRAM).po
.
KBabel takes automatically care of this, if you load the file from the Catalog Manager and save it afterwards. You just need to make sure that you put the right path names in -> in the dialog at Catalog Manager.
From now on you are only working with the PO
file for this program.
The main part of your work will be to change and keep current already translated documents (i.e. existing PO
files).
Then you have to translate untranslated strings and check the already translated strings that are marked as "fuzzy". To simplify correction of fuzzies KBabel provides the "diff mode". In this mode (for corrections this mode should always be switched on) new and deleted parts of the msgid are highlighted. For this to work KBabel keeps a translation database where it automatically stores translated msgids and msgstrs. As soon as you change the msgstr the "fuzzy" mark will disappear. If you decide that the msgstr is without changes correct you need to delete the "fuzzy" mark yourself by pressing Ctrl+U. This is important because a DocBook file can only be generated, if the PO
file is 100% translated.
If the documentation directory of the program contains screen shots you should produce a localized (e.g. with a translated GUI) version. KSnapshot is a useful tool for this purpose, but any application is fine as long as it can produce screen shots and save them as PNG
file.
You should follow the screenshots rules while creating a screenshot for the documentation.
It is important to save the localized picture under the same name as the original one in the translated DocBook directory corresponding to the applications English documentation DocBook directory (not the directory of the PO
file).
For more information about PO
files and their translation see the respective section in the GUI chapter.