			Guide for Translators

1. Adding a new language:
=========================

Assuming you have downloaded the distributed source tarball, unpacked it and
changed directory to the root directory of the unpacked source tarball first
make the po template file:

	$ cd po/
	$ make elinks.pot

Use the elinks.pot template file as the basis for you translation:

	$ cp elinks.pot <your language code>.po

Modify .po file header that should look like this:

# SOME DESCRIPTIVE TITLE.
# Copyright (C) YEAR THE PACKAGE'S COPYRIGHT HOLDER
# This file is distributed under the same license as the PACKAGE package.
# FIRST AUTHOR <EMAIL@ADDRESS>, YEAR.
#
#, fuzzy
msgid ""
msgstr ""
"Project-Id-Version: PACKAGE VERSION\n"
"POT-Creation-Date: 2005-03-03 11:22+0100\n"
"PO-Revision-Date: YEAR-MO-DA HO:MI+ZONE\n"
"Last-Translator: FULL NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>\n"
"Language-Team: LANGUAGE <LL@li.org>\n"
"MIME-Version: 1.0\n"
"Content-Type: text/plain; charset=CHARSET\n"
"Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n"
"Plural-Forms: nplurals=INTEGER; plural=EXPRESSION;\n"

Once done don't forget to remove '#, fuzzy' line.
Then follow the instructions in the 'Updating .po files' section below.

1.1 Integrating a new language file:
------------------------------------

When you are done editing the .po file you need to integrate it as part of
ELinks. If you don't feel comfortable editing the ELinks C-language source code
don't hesitate to get a developer to do it for you.

First change directory to the root directory of the unpacked source tarball:

	$ cd ../

Add your language code to the ALL_LINGUAS string in configure.in (keep the
alphabetic order ;). To make the change take effect you have to rebuild all
Makefiles:

	$ ./autogen.sh
	$ ./configure

The language file will now be compiled when you run make and you can check the
translation file for errors and fix any warnings you get.

Next thing is to add it to the Setup->Language menu. This is done by adding an
entry in the language array in src/intl/gettext/libintl.c, and should not
require any C coding skills, just copy an already existing entry and edit the
name of your language (in English) so you end up with something like:

	struct language languages[] = {
		{"System", "system"},
		{"English", "en"},

		... other entries ...
		{"<name for your language in English>", "<your language code>"},
		... other entries ...

	        {NULL, NULL},
	};

1.2 Testing your changes without installing ELinks:
---------------------------------------------------

It is possible to test translation updates without installing ELinks. After
building both ELinks and the po files, simply start ELinks from the top-level
directory in the source tree using:

	$ ./src/elinks

It will then load po files from the po/ directory in the source tree.

1.3 Making the new language file part of ELinks:
------------------------------------------------

Finally to make it part of the ELinks distribution send it to one of the
mailinglists or file it as a bug at <http://bugzilla.elinks.cz>.


2. Updating .po files:
======================

2.1 Tools needed:
-----------------

There are a great deal of tools for editing and working with .po files most are
described in the gettext manual availabe at <http://www.gnu.org/manual/gettext>
or by typing `info gettext` on some systems. Some editors have special .po modes
to help spot errors etc. but nothing fancy is required to update only some
reasonable editor.

In order to compile, get warnings and actually use your updated language file
you will however need the gettext tools. If you don't have any of these tools
please don't hesitate to still do the update and send it to the mailinglist or
bugzilla so it can be added to Git. By next release or nightly generated tarball
you can then make use of your updates.

2.2 The basics of updating:
---------------------------

2.2.1 Singular forms, general rules:
------------------------------------

Each string that needs to be translated will look like this:

	#: src/dialogs/info.c:184
	#, fuzzy, c-format
	msgid "Cache content: %s"
	msgstr "Cacheindhold: %s"

Lines starting with '#' are comments or control hints for the po compiler.  The
text following '#:' is a listing of each place (filename and line number) in the
code where the string is used. Text following '#,' are a comma separated list of
control hints:

	'fuzzy'

		means that the string was changed in the code and the translator
		needs to check if the translation is still ok. When it has been
		checked or updated it is safe to remove 'fuzzy' and the
		following comma.

	'c-format'

		is a hint to the compiler, checker and translator that the
		string uses printf format.

The string following 'msgid' are the original untranslated string. It is used to
get the translated one so: DO NEVER CHANGE IT. If you spot an error in it change
it in the code instead and resync your .po files using make update-po.

The string following 'msgstr' is the translated string.
TODO: write about the meaning of % fragments.

Some strings contain '~' (tilde) chars. They are used to mark hotkeys in text
for menu entries. The char following the '~' is the hotkey char. So in the
string "Global ~history" the hotkey will become 'h'. You should try and keep
hotkeys unique. If you configure ELinks with --enable-debug conflicting hotkeys
will be visible.

Some translations may become obsolete due to code modifications, these will be
marked by #~ prefix, and moved at end of file. Keeping them may be a good thing
since a modification can be reversed later and then gettext tools will reuse
these special lines at resync time. If, at some time, you think some of these
lines will never be reused, feel free to delete them to reduce file size.

A special msgid ("") contains .po file headers, you may update them as
well, especially Last-Translator and PO-Revision-Date fields.

2.2.2 Plurals forms:
--------------------

First set Plural-Forms: header (msgid "" at top of .po file) to some correct
value, depending on language. See GNU gettext documentation for details, at
http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext

Plural forms will appear like this in .po file:

#: src/dialogs/info.c:259
#, c-format
msgid "%d session"
msgid_plural "%d sessions"
msgstr[0] "%d session"
msgstr[1] "%d sessions"

msgid and msgid_plural should not be changed, each msgstr[n] line contains
translation for each plural form.


2.3 Synchronizing .po files with the code
-----------------------------------------

IMPORTANT: if you changed strings in the code, or if you're using a Git version
of ELinks, take care of synchronization between code and po files.  Before any
change to a po file, you must synchronize it with code.

To update only one file you may use:

	cd po/ ; make update-po PO=<lang>.po

or

	cd po/ ; make update-po PO=<lang>

where <lang> has to be replaced by ie. fr, de, da, cs...

If this fails or you want to update all .po files, use:

	cd po/ ; make update-po

2.4 Checking updated .po files
------------------------------

After updating a .po file you should always check it for errors in the c-format
fragments, etc. You can do this by running:

	cd po/ ; make check-po PO=<lang>.po

or

	cd po/ ; make check-po PO=<lang>

It can potentially report some false positives if the .po file contains fuzzy
message strings.

Note: It will in some situations report a false-positive. The only currently
known issue is when the msgid contains a tilde not being used a an accelerator
mark (e.g. "~/.elinks") and the translated msgstr do not.

2.5 Making the updates part of ELinks:
--------------------------------------

If the language file is already added finally run make to compile and check the
language file for errors and fix any warnings you get. Then patch your changes
and send it to one of the mailinglists or file it as a bug at
<http://bugzilla.elinks.cz>.


3. Statistics:
==============

Some people (like Zas but other mortals as well ;) like to know how much of the
language file is up-to-date. This can be accomplished by running the
gen_translations_stats.sh script from the po/ directory. It will list the
current status of each language file. Be proud if your language file rank higher
or the same as the French one.


vim: textwidth=80
