4. LOCALISATION WHY?
●
Open Source Project
– Contribution from people around the world
– Distributed to people around the world
– Not all people can use English well
– Give them more accessibility to softwares and technology
5. Examples
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GNOME
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KDE
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Many Open Source Projects
6. LOCALISATION WHAT?
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APPLICATIONS
– User Interface
– Error Messages
– Info Messages
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DOCUMENTATION
– Manuals
– Help Documents
7. LOCALISATION HOW?
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Translate messages, documents, etc
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Contribute to upstream
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Roles of Contributors
– As translators
– As Coordinator
8. LOCALISATION HOW?
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Translator – preferred characteristics
– Have a good command in both languages
– Familiar with the program that is being translated
– Familiar with computer jargons
– Have a good skill in writing
9. LOCALISATION HOW?
●
Coordinator – preferred characteristics
– Translator's features
– High responsibility
– Can coordinate between translators as well as people from
upstream
– Good communication skills
11. LOCALISATION
●
Why is it not a piece of cake?
– Numerous string entries
– A huge number of packages
– Low number of translators
– Need some specific knowledges in order to effectively translate
programs
– Need higherthanaverage communication skills, especially in
writing, to make the translated strings understandable.
– etc....
12. LOCALISATION HOWTO
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Choose a program that you would like to translate
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Tell your coordinator
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Download the message's template (*.pot file)
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Translate... and save as *.po file
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When finish, send the file to coordinator
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Coordinator will check translation and if things go well,
the file will be uploaded to upstream
13. LOCALISATION HOWTO
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Tools
– SVN/CVS (http://subversion.tigris.org/)
●
A version control software, used to download template files
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For coordinator, this program will also be used to upload files to
repository
– KBabel (http://kbabel.kde.org/)
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A tool that is used to edit and manage gettext PO files
