Localization/Translation FAQ
- (2007-2011)
-
+ (2007-2018)
+
by Ran Rutenberg, Pavel Sanda, Michael Gerz
PART I - Interface translation
------------------------------
-This file is mainly intended for those who have no or little experience using
+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.
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
(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 http://www.lyx.org/HowToUseGIT page.
+can follow https://www.lyx.org/HowToUseGIT page.
2) HOW DO I EDIT PO FILES?
-PO files can be edited with any 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?
'&' 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...
+
+You will be informed about conflicts in the terminal if you try to access the
+menu.
+
+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$d MUST also
-appear in your translations! Please take them exactly as they are or you may
+'$' 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
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
+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.
(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:
+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".
+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.
+
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:
- on Linux: execute the command: make update-po
-- on Windows: either build the update-po target in MSVC
- or run the command: msbuild po\update-po.vcxproj
- (depending on the directory you are in)
+- 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.
7) HOW TO CONTRIBUTE MY WORK?
Send your edited xx.po file to po-updates@lyx.org.
-Also you can check http://www.lyx.org/trac/browser/lyxgit/?rev=master to track
+Also you can check https://www.lyx.org/trac/browser/lyxgit/?rev=master to track
changes or watch updates.
For a basic idea of how the translation works, you can look at
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettext
+ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettext
For detailed reference (including a full list of country and language codes),
have a look at
- http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/gettext.html
+ https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/gettext.html
Consider subscribing to the documentation list, lyx-docs@lists.lyx.org (rather
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: http://www.lyx.org/trac/changeset/38169.
+following commit: https://www.lyx.org/trac/changeset/38169.
If you need to manually regenerate the layouttranslations file from .po files
-run `make ../lib/layouttranslations' in the po directory. The Python polib
-library is needed for building the output file.
+- 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.
Q: Running make ../lib/layouttranslations returns with just saying
../lib/layouttranslations is up to date.
projects / lyx.git / blobdiff