Moblin: Starting a Project Translation

Once you are authenticated, you can start translating! Transifex makes it easy for you to get the most up-to-date po file, translate, and post it back to the project.

Note: We assume that you are familiar with po files, Linux, and character encoding. All Moblin po files are encoded with UTF-8.

1. Once authenticated, choose a project from the translate.moblin.org home page. (Click the “Browse through all projects” link to see the entire list.) We will use BISHO as an example. Click Moblin2-UI (Bisho) under the Bisho heading.
2. Under the heading “Translation Files” there is “Source File” followed by po/bisho.pot. This is the template you use. Click the little icon with the green arrow to download it.
3. We highly recommend using PO Edit to translate the file.

NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT USE PO EDIT, YOU MUST USE A UTF-8 COMPLIANT PLAIN TEXT EDITOR. SAVE YOUR FILE WITH A .PO EXTENSION WHEN YOU ARE FINISHED.

For those of you familiar with PO Edit and editing po files, skip the next 3 steps.

1. Open the bisho.pot file in PO Edit. Put your email address in the file heading (under “Last-Translator”) so we know who did the work and you get the recognition for doing it!
2. Notice that there is a English string and right below it is msgstr “”. Put your translation of the English string inside those quotes.
3. PO Edit automatically saves the file as a po file, probably as bisho.po. It really doesn’t matter what you call it, because it will be renamed later when you check it in.
4. If there is anyone that can review your work before you post it, please have them do so.
5. Go back to translate.moblin.org and go to the Bisho project, Moblin2-UI page.
6. Scroll down until you see the “Add a new translation” button. Click that.
7. Use the “Browse” button to find your local bisho.po file and select it.
8. Skip the next line and go to “or enter it here:” Enter po/xx.po. For example, for French, type po/fr.po. Please see this page for a list of language codes that Transifex recognizes.
9. Enter a commit message (“translated by Margie Foster” or “Initial translation of beta strings” or whatever strikes your fancy.)
10. Click Send. If all goes well, you will see a message at the top of the screen that the po file was added successfully. You will also see your file appear in the list (and if you used the correct language code, your language will be fully displayed).
11. If you have any problems, send the issue to the mailing list. (We are working on a FAQ, but it’s not quite ready yet.)