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diff --git a/translation-help b/translation-help new file mode 100644 index 00000000..f0e5fbfa --- /dev/null +++ b/translation-help @@ -0,0 +1,50 @@ +HOWTO: Help with translations +----------------------------- + +This document is here to guide you in helping translate pacman messages, +libalpm messages, and the manpages for the entire pacman package. + +A quick note- the gettext website is a very useful guide to read before +embarking on translation work, as it describes many of the commands in more +detail than I will here: +<http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/gettext.html> + +In addition, this site presents a small tutorial that I found useful: +<http://oriya.sarovar.org/docs/gettext/> + +Translating Messages +-------------------- + +The message files are located in two directories in pacman- lib/libalpm/po/ +and src/pacman/po/. Each language has a .po file associated with it; the .pot +file is the template file for creating new .po files and updating the messages +in them when the code changes. + +First things first. You will need to run ./autogen.sh and ./configure in the +base directory to generate the correct Makefiles. To update the translation +files, run this command: + make update-po + +At this point, the .pot file rereads the source code and updates its string +list, and the existing po files are merged if necessary to add new messages +or remove old ones. These po files can then either be hand edited, or modified +with a tool such as gtranslator or kbabel. + +Making a new language is not too hard, but be sure to follow all the steps. +You will have to do the following steps in both the lib/libalpm/po/ and +src/pacman/po/ directories, substituting where approriate. First, edit the +LINGUAS file and add your new language code at the bottom. Next, run the +following command, substituting 'libalpm.pot' or 'pacman.pot' depending on +which directory you are currently working in: + msginit -l <lang code> -o <lang code>.po -i <potfile> + +Look at the current message files for more guidance if necessary. Once you +create the new language file, you may need to slightly modify the headers; +try to make them look similar to the other .po file headers. In addition, for +all new translations we would strongly recommend using UTF-8 encoding. + +Translating Manpages +-------------------- + +(To Be Announced) + |