TranslationProcess

Foswiki translation process

  This topic is about coordinating the translation process. For information on how to make translations to individual languages, see TranslationUserInterface instead.

When

The translation process must be coordinated with the Foswiki release managers. We need to reach some important dates:

• String freeze: after this date, no strings are updated and the translators can work without fear that their work is going to be out of date because strings were changed in the code.
  • Note that minor string changes needed to address issues reported by the translators will still be made.
  • Weblate is able to deal with changes and encourages a "Continuous translation" approach rather than the phased "Freeze -> Translate" approach.
• Deadline for checkin of translations: the latest moment in which translation updates can be checked in to the source tree.
  • Translations will be accepted right up until the "Release Candidate" is built. Once the RC is built, any changes will require another RC to be built. Please don't change translations once the RC is announced as being built. If the issue is significant enough to require a rebuild of the release, coordinate with the Release Manager.

Who

Translators are identified in TranslationTeam. Some languages have chosen to appoint a "lead" to approve all translations. When this is done, the other users for that language will have "Suggestion" rights only (unless they are also a lead in a different language).

How

Weblate provides detailed quality checks, reported for each language. See http://translate.foswiki.org

If manual checks are desired, the following steps can be run, not necessarily in this order:

Action	How to
Check the health of translations	tools/check_translations --raw
Update Foswiki translation status on Foswiki.org	tools/check_translations --upload
Check who are the translators	tools/check_translations --translators
Update translations from code	tools/xgettext

Supporting material

template for the translation process announcement

This is a suggestion of message text for announcing to translators that they can start to work. The best practice is to address the message to Foswiki's development list (foswiki-discuss@lists.foswiki.org), and to Bcc: all the translators so their addresses are not exposed.

Note the bold parts, they must be filled with release-specific information.

-- Contributors: AntonioTerceiro, AndreUlrich

Please use the TranslationProcessTalk page to talk on this topic.