How to help translate BirdieSync

If you are a die-hard defender of your language and want to help translate BirdieSync, have a look at this forum...
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Birdy
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How to help translate BirdieSync

Post by Birdy »

For a long time ago, many of you have offered to help translating BirdieSync into their language. But in order to easy this work, it was necessary to set up the process to manage translations. It has just been achieved and a Pootle server was set up for BirdieSync:
http://www.birdiesync.com/translation

Here is the procedure if you wish to participate to the translation of BirdieSync.

How to participate:

To participate to the translation of BirdieSync, you must be a mother-tongue speaker of the language of the translation. You should also have good writing skills and it is recommended to have a minimum knowledge of BirdieSync application. Of course, you should have a good understanding of English since the original text is written in this language.

First you need to register:
http://www.birdiesync.com/translation/a ... /register/

Note that to login, you need to enter your username, not the email address.

Then click on the Home button. All the languages which need to be translated are now listed. If yours is not listed, post in the forum asking it to be added. Note that English is only listed as a reference and must not be translated.
Once your language is added, you can now start to translate BirdieSync.

Translator:

The translator can suggest translations for all strings in BirdieSync projects.

First you need to log in:
http://www.birdiesync.com/translation/accounts/login/

Then go to the Home tab click on the language you wish to translate (note that you can configure your dashboard to display your preferred language). You will then see the different projects associated to BirdieSync (Synchronizer, Extension, Windows Mobile, Android, iPhone).

Click on the project you wish to translate. Click on “Translate” and then click on “View untranslated”. Now all strings that need to be displayed should be displayed.

You can enter a new translation for a specific string, and then click on “Suggest”. This translation is not yet accepted. It will be up to the translation reviewer to definitively accept it and validate it.
If you are a translation reviewer, you can directly click on “Submit” button. The translation is immediately validated.

Fuzzy: if this checkbox is checked, it means that the initial text that has already been translated has been changed. So the current translation no longer perfectly matches the original text and needs to be updated accordingly.

Translation reviewer:

The translation reviewer can validate the translations suggested by other translators or its own translations. If you want to take in charge this responsibility, just ask for it !

In a specific project, you can review all translations clicking on the “Review” tab.

Once a translation is suggested by another translator, you can accept it by clicking on the green validation mark.
Once validated, this translation can be used in a next release of BirdieSync. But note that the translations will be included in BirdieSync only if the translation of the projects is completed.

Strings to translate

A string to translate can have parameters like “%1”, “%2”, “%n”, etc. For instance: “Launching %1”. These parameters are replaced with values at execution time. For instance “%1” could be replaced with the word “Thunderbird” or “Sunbird” when BirdieSync is executed. Usually a comment should mention how these parameters would be replaced. If not, you should be able to guess the meaning of these parameters based on the context of the sentence. You may also find special characters like “\n” (line feed) or escaped quotes like \”. Just reproduce these characters in the translation without modifying them.

Respect the lower cases/upper cases and the punctuation. Be careful if a work begins with a lower case or an upper case. Note that Pootle automatically detects if you don't respect the case for the starting word and will display a "Failing check".
Also in the "Review" tab, statistics are displayed regarding the "Failing checks" and the differences detected between the original strings and their translations (ending punctuation, starting lower/upper case, etc.).

If possible, try not to have a too big difference of string size as it could impact the graphical user interface.

Also try to have a consistent vocabulary. For instance, if your translate “Desktop” into “PC”, uses the same word in all translations.

Test of the translation:

By now, it’s not possible to test the translation in live.

Last words:

This process may evolve and be improved in time. Feel free to communicate your remarks about it or ask questions if needed.
A big thank you to all people who will participate to the translation of BirdieSync !
Birdy

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