How to make Translations in Elive

This document contains some important things to know in order to not have problems with your translations

Requirements

We have an own made tool that makes the translations very easy, try to run it from the Applications menu or pressing "Alt + Esc" in your desktop, its called eltrans.

If you don't have it installed, you can install it with the command apui eltrans

What can I translate ?

When you run the eltrans tool you can see all the applications of Elive that you can translate. You can also make translations for Enlightenment 17 but you can't send them in the automatized way, for that you need to send your generated translation via email (more instructions in eltrans)

Finally, if you want to translate for applications that are not listed (normally, Debian applications), you need to check how Debian does it, which is a different process.

If the element that you want to translate is not a part of Debian but a part of Elive and it is NOT available on eltrans, you need to request to support this element in eltrans too, for that, just create a new ticket requesting it (or better talk about this on the #elive-dev IRC channel)

Important things to Know

This is the important section :)

• Fast commits: Its a good practice to send your translations not much delayed, like every hour, this is important so that if somebody else is working on the same translation too it will not conflict between versions of the file. If this happens you can try to fix it manually (following the HowtoSVN tutorial) if you have some developer knowledges (svn in fact) but eltrans can make it a little easier for you too, if you want to continue your translations in another moment just send the actual made ones before to close eltrans:
• Code: You are translating messages of a source code application, this means that it will contain strange things like:

  This is a C %s string
  This is a BASH $var variable
  This is another BASH ${var%%/*} type of variable
  This is a \n newline symbol (escape secuence to reprent an 'Enter')
  

  All these messages (and a lot others) are NOT errors, they are code, so do not change them, keep them just as they are, if not, the application will not work correctly showing the correct messages, specially the ones like %s. This is an example of a translation to Spanish for the first line: Esto es una C %s frase
• Updated sentences: Also called fuzzy or represented as a cloud, this means that the message was auto-generated (automatic translations system) or that the original message was slightly modified, in other words it needs a simple revision/look-up, just a check if the translation is correct and equivalent to the original message, if it doesn't need any modifications click in the cloud icon in order to mark it as OK.

Control

If you want to have more control to the translations, check [HowtoSVN how to use SVN] to understand how it works internally. You can also check the ​timeline where you can watch the new commits by the other translators in a nice and visually way, you can also have a RSS system in the timeline so that you can watch every commit in your News reader, to which language, and from who, like:

Eltrans: auto-sent for |liveboot| in -|es|- by 'Thanatermesis'

You can also check for older versions of the translations since they are saved in the history, that's called svn revisions

• Example: Imagine that someone has sent a wrong translation and has then broken yours, so just browse the versions going back in the history looking oldest versions, get the desired one, and merge it (its recommended to use the tool meld) in the actual updated version (how to use SVN: HowtoSVN) and send it again