Translator instructions

Wiki ▸ Documentation ▸ Translator instructions

Buoy's code is fully internationalized and is ready to be localized into many different human languages. () This page provides guidance for Buoy project contributors who want to translate Buoy into their native language, or offer suggestions and improvements to other existing translations for the languages they speak.

Using Transifex

The Buoy project uses Transifex, a translations management website, to coordinate volunteer efforts to translate the user interface of Buoy from English to myriad other human languages. To become a translation volunteer, you will need to sign up for a Transifex user account. Transifex user accounts are free (i.e., you do not need to give them your credit card or other payment information).

To learn how to use Transifex,

1. go to their getting started as a translator page.
2. Once you've signed up and know how to use the site, go to the Buoy project's Transifex page.

Downloading, editing, and uploading translation file (.pot) on Transifex

1. Once logged in and on dashboard click on Languages.
2. Click on the link with language name and new page will open (titled Languages -> name_of_the_language)
3. After clicking on link (better-angels.pot) pop-up window will appear with several options including "Download file to translate".
4. To edit file you'll need an Gettext translation editor (for example Poedit).
5. After editing file locally, click on the link from step 3 and in the pop-up window choose "Upload file"

Translating and reviewing on Transifex

1. Often there is only one person handling the translation for a given language, so the Transifex roles of Translator and Reviewer are overkill. However, if working within Transifex, ideally each string should get two passes.
2. After initial translation of a string, come back at a different time to review your work for typos or mistakes (or if you're so lucky, have another speaker of the language review it). Choose REVIEW as a confirmation of the translation. This will show on the language summary page as two blue lines, light blue for translation progress, dark blue for 'review' progress. It will show on the string by showing two checkmarks (confirmed) as opposed to one checkmark (translated).

Finding terms in their appropriate context

1. The translations for many terms will depend on their context within the plugin, so it's best to become familiar with account setup and plugin use prior to beginning translation work. If you have not used Buoy previously, review the links within this wiki for Configuring Buoy, Assembling a crisis response team, Sending an alert with Buoy and Using Buoy during an incident first.

Committing translations to code

1. Download the translation file from Transifex (from a language dashboard, click the resource, then click "Download for use" or "Download only reviewed translations" depending on your team's workflow)
2. Copy the downloaded file(s) into Buoy's /langauges/ directory.

• Ensure the downloaded file matches the format buoy-$LANG.po, where $LANG is the language code. For instance: cd $PATH_TO_BUOY; cp ~/Downloads/for_use*-es.po languages/buoy-es.po for Spanish.

1. Compile the .po file(s) into a binary with msgfmt(1). For instance, using Bash:

• for i in buoy-*.po; do msgfmt -o ${i%%.po}.mo $i; done;

1. Commit the updated translations as per normal.