Localization/Translation FAQ
-
+ (2007-2018)
+
by Ran Rutenberg, Pavel Sanda, Michael Gerz
- February 2007
-This file is mainly intended for those who have no or little experience using
-.po files, but want to contribute by translating the LyX interface into their
-native language.
+PART I - Interface translation
+------------------------------
+
+This file is mainly intended for those who have no or little experience using
+.po files, but want to contribute by translating the LyX interface (i.e. menu
+and dialog items, console messages) into their native language.
1) WHERE DO I START?
-The file you need to edit it an xx.po file where xx stands for your language's
-two letter code. German would be for example de.po and Polish pl.po. For a list
-of languages codes look at:
+The file you need to edit is an xx.po file where xx stands for your language's
+two letter code. For a list of language codes look at:
- http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_mono/gettext.html#Language-Codes
+ https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_mono/gettext.html#Language-Codes
If you want to start from scratch then you should obtain a copy of the lyx.pot
and name it after your language. German would be for example de.po and Polish
pl.po. This file is generated in the "po" directory of the source tree during
the compilation.
+There are basically two source trees you can start to work with - trunk
+(development version) and branch (stable version). Unless the development
+version is shortly before release it is better to start your translating
+work on the stable version. If you have no idea how to get those trees you
+can follow https://www.lyx.org/HowToUseGIT page.
+
2) HOW DO I EDIT PO FILES?
-PO files can be edited with every text editor available for your system (e.g.
-VIM, NotePad etc.). Yet another option is to use a specialized editor for .po
-files. You can e.g. use the editors "poEdit" or "jEdit", Linux users can
-additionally use e.g. "kbabel". Using these editors usually makes things easier
+PO files can be edited with any text editor available for your system (e.g.
+Vim, jEdit etc.). Yet another option is to use a specialized editor for .po
+files. You can e.g. use the editor "Poedit", Linux users can
+additionally use e.g. "Lokalize". Using these editors usually makes things easier
as they have many tools to assist the translator.
+If you use Poedit, please uncheck in its settings the option to break lines after
+80 characters.
3) WHAT DO I NEED TO TRANSLATE?
appear in the msgid line and write the translation into the msgstr line. Note
that a "#, fuzzy" line is just a hint for translation from compiler - in order
to get the translation of the current item working you have to delete this
-line. It is recommended that you would take a look at another .po file - that
-way you can get an idea of what to do. If you are using a specialized po editor
+line. It is recommended that you take a look at another .po file - that way you
+can get an idea of what to do. If you are using a specialized po editor
then you will see in it the untranslated strings and a place to write your
translation for them.
'&' stands for underlined characters (shortcut) in dialog boxes.
'|' stands for underlined characters in menus.
-These chars should be somehow used in your translations, however you'll have to
-invent your own working shortcuts for dialog and menu entries and resolve
-possible conflicts of the same shortcut chars in one menu...
+These chars should be somehow used in your translations, however you'll have to
+invent your own working shortcuts for dialog and menu entries and resolve
+possible conflicts of the same shortcut chars in one menu...
-Note also that there are already used global shortcuts (such as p k x c m) and
-you should avoid to use these characters for first-level menu shortcuts.
+You will be informed about conflicts in the terminal if you try to access the
+menu.
-'$' and '%' are usually used as handlers for formatting or variables to be
-inserted into the strings. Character sequences like %1$s or %1$d MUST also
-appear in your translations! Please take them exactly as they are or you may
+Note that, in the case of '|', if more than one character follows, this means
+that LyX will try each of them in turn and use the first one that is not yet
+used by another entry in the menu. That way, you can define alternative shortcuts
+in the case one works in one context only, and another one only in another. You
+can use this possibility also in translations, but please use it only if no
+single shortcut that fits could be found.
+
+Note also that there are already used global shortcuts (such as p k x c m s a)
+and you should avoid using these characters for first-level menu shortcuts.
+
+'$' and '%' are usually used as handlers for formatting or variables to be
+inserted into the strings. Character sequences like %1$s or %1$d MUST also
+appear in your translations! Please take them exactly as they are or you may
experience crashes when running LyX.
[[Context]] is used to distinguish otherwise identical strings, which could
-have different translation dependent on the Context. [[Context]] appears only
-in msgid string and should not be repeated in the translated version.
+have different translations depending on the Context. It can also be used to
+indicate what is substituted for a placeholder. [[Context]] appears only in
+msgid string and should not be repeated in the translated version.
-{} refer to counters and must not be translated. Example would be:
+{} refer to counters and must not be translated. An example would be:
msgid "Algorithm \\arabic{theorem}"
msgstr "Algoritmus \\arabic{theorem}"
5) WHAT IS pocheck.pl AND HOW DO I USE IT?
-This is a small script located in the "po" directory of the source that helps
-you find common errors in your translation. In order to use this script you have
-to have the script language Perl installed.
+This is a small script located in the "po" directory of the source that helps
+you find common errors in your translation. In order to use this script you
+need the script language Perl installed.
+Run ./pocheck.pl -h to see all possible switches.
6) HOW CAN I TEST MY TRANSLATION?
-In order to test your translation you need to obtain the LyX sources (from the
-SVN repository) and replace the existing .po with yours. Afterwards, you should
-compile and install LyX (check the INSTALL file for your OS). If you don't
-install LyX it won't work. In order to run LyX with your translation, use the
-appropriate LANG variable:
+In order to test your translation you need to obtain the LyX sources
+(from the git repository) and replace the existing .po with yours.
+Afterwards, you should compile and optionally install LyX (check the
+INSTALL file for your OS). Note that, as of LyX 2.1, it is not
+necessary anymore to install anything.
+
+In order to run LyX with your translation, change the current language
+in Preferences dialog or use the appropriate LANG variable:
On Linux: LANG=xx_CC lyx
On Windows, you need to change the lyx.bat file and write: set LANG=xx_CC
-xx stands for your language code. CC stands for your country code. So to get,
+xx stands for your language code. CC stands for your country code. So to get,
e.g., Czech, the code is "cs_CZ".
-The most comfortable way to see your updated translation while editing, is
-running (in linux):
-1. "make xx.gmo" in the po directory to compile updated xx.po translation
-2. "make install" in root lyx tree to copy xx.gmo into the appropriate location
- (or do it by hand...)
+Another possibility is to use the Preferences dialog to set LyX UI to
+use your language. Note that, as of LyX 2.2, a newly introduced
+language will not appear in the languages combox unless it corresponds
+to an entry of the lib/languages file that has a "HasGuiSupport true"
+property. See this file for more details.
-For advanced users - if you want to remerge your files against current source
-files run make update-po.
+The most comfortable way to see your updated translation while
+editing, is running (in linux) "make xx.gmo" in the po directory to
+compile updated xx.po translation and then run LyX.
+For advanced users - if you want to remerge your files against current source:
-7) HOW TO CONTRIBUTE MY WORK?
+- on Linux: execute the command: make update-po
+- on Windows: if you compile LyX in install mode, the po files are automatically
+ updated and output to the folder <compilation output folder>\po
+ Another option is to build the target "update-po" in MSVC.
-You can manually use diff utility to make patch; usually the most comfortable
-way is to run something like (after you edit xx.po):
- svn diff xx.po > xx.po.patch
+7) HOW TO CONTRIBUTE MY WORK?
-This file should be sent to po-updates@lyx.org.
+Send your edited xx.po file to po-updates@lyx.org.
-Also you can check http://www.lyx.org/trac/browser/lyx-devel/trunk to track
+Also you can check https://www.lyx.org/trac/browser/lyxgit/?rev=master to track
changes or watch updates.
-8) REFERENCES
+8) SHALL ALL THE UNUSED STRINGS AT THE BOTTOM OF .PO FILE BE REMOVED,
+ OR SHALL THEY STAY?
+
+As you wish. They can be reused for generating fuzzy hints when completely
+new strings appear, no other function.
+
+
+9) REFERENCES
+
+For a basic idea of how the translation works, you can look at
+
+ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettext
+
+For detailed reference (including a full list of country and language codes),
+have a look at
+
+ https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/gettext.html
+
+
+Consider subscribing to the documentation list, lyx-docs@lists.lyx.org (rather
+silent), or the developer's mailing list, lyx-devel@lists.lyx.org (high
+volume).
+
+
+
+PART II - Translation of Math environments and Floats in the final output
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+As of 2.0 LyX allows automatic translation in tex/dvi/ps/pdf output for math
+environment strings (and some floats) which are not automatically translated via
+babel package to the localized form. For example the environment "Exercise"
+becomes "Aufgabe" in the output of the documents with language set to German.
-For some basic idea on how the translation works, you can look at
+These translations are taken from the previously translated .po file before the
+final major LyX release (e.g. 2.0.0) and are fixed for all next minor releases
+(e.g. 2.0.x) in order to have fixed output of LyX documents.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettext
+The current translation for your language can be found in the file
+lib/layouttranslations. An easy way to check many of the translations is to
+simply load lib/examples/localization_test.lyx in LyX and read its
+instructions.
-For detailed reference (including full list of country and language codes),
-have a look at
+The problematic strings can be then fixed in the .po file. For inspiration the
+typical places in .po files, where to fix the translation, can be seen on the
+following commit: https://www.lyx.org/trac/changeset/38169.
- http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/gettext.html
+If you need to manually regenerate the layouttranslations file from .po files
+- Under Linux: If using autotools, execute the command
+ `make ../lib/layouttranslations'
+ in the po directory. If using CMake, execute the command
+ `make layouttranslations1'
+ in the build directory.
+ The Python polib library is needed for building the output file.
+- Under Windows:
+ 1. install the Python extensions "polib". To do this,
+ 1.1 open a commen line prompt in the folder where you find the file "pip.exe"
+ withing the python installation folder.
+ 1.2 execute the command
+ pip install polib
+ 2. close the command prompt and open the file "lyx.sln" with MSVC. You find
+ file in the compilation result folder you set for LyX
+ 3. right click in MSVC on the target "layouttranslations1" and choose "Rebuild"
+Optionally - to quickly check whether some new translatable strings appeared
+for your language you can always check ../lib/layouttranslations.review.
-Consider subscribing to the documentation list at lyx-docs@lists.lyx.org (rather
-silent one) or developer's mailing list lyx-devel@lists.lyx.org (high volume).
+Q: Running make ../lib/layouttranslations returns with just saying
+ ../lib/layouttranslations is up to date.
+A: To force regerenation, use something like (XX is your language)
+ make -W XX.po ../lib/layouttranslations
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