A short howto on how to start translating.
1) Download the POT file.
2) Install Poedit: sudo apt-get install poedit
3) Configure Poedit
Create a directory where you want to safe your translation files.
Start Poedit: Development > Translation > Poedit
In Poedit: Edit > Preferences > Translation memory
Click "Add" to add the language you're translating to.
Click "Generate database", and add the directory you just created.
Click "Next" and "Finish", and wait for a long time to finish creating the database.
4) Open the POT file
File > New catalog from POT file...
Note: If you already made a translation previously, please open the .po file in Poedit, and update with the accompanied .pot file to add any new translations (Catalog > Update from POT File... ).
Project name and version: e.g.: softwaremanager 7.5.0 (see naming above)
Team: SolydXK
Team's email address: admin@solydxk.com
Language: your language
Country: your country
Charset: UTF-8
Source code charset: utf-8
Catalog > Automatically translate using TM
The more you have translated, the more it will make the translations for you!
These translations are "fuzzy", by default, but If the translation is correct, you can click the cloud-button.
5) Start translating
Note:
If you need to break a long word, you can do so with a hypen.
E.g.: thisisavery-longword, would end up like:
thisisavery-
longword
Keep special strings as-is (do not remove, or change in any way): %s, %(tagstring)s, %d, %(tagdigit)d, etc.
Some texts are obviously of a debug nature. You can simply copy them (no need to translate)
6) Save the file
When you save the file, a .mo file is created. This is the file we need.
Note: the .po and the .mo file both have the same name as the package name.
7) Test your translation
If you want to test your translation your system needs to be localized in the language you're translating.
You can then copy the .mo file to the corresponding locale directory.
E.g.: I copied my Dutch translation of softwaremanager to:
/usr/share/locale/nl/LC_MESSAGES/softwaremanager.mo