L10N/Guide

Introduction

This guide is a fast, simple, step-by-step set of instructions for translating Fedora Project software and documents. You may find some FAQ at the end of the page.

We Need Feedback!
If you find a typographical error in this manual, or if you have thought of a way to make this manual better, please feel free to either edit the page directly or simply send an email to the Fedora Localization Project mailing list. If you have a suggestion for improving the documentation, try to be as specific as possible when describing it. If you have found an error, please include the section number and some of the surrounding text so we can find it easily.

Getting Help

If you have questions, post them on the trans mailing list, or ask for help via Internet Relay Chat (IRC), at irc.freenode.org on channel #fedora-l10n.

Becoming a Fedora Translator

Subscribing to the Mailing List

1. Visit https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/trans and subscribe to the main translation mailing list.
2. Wait for the confirmation email which contains a link to confirm your subscription. Click the link to confirm your subscription.

Check https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N/Teams to see if there is a special mailing list for your language. If so, subscribe to that list too.

Create a Fedora Account

The steps below guide you through the creation of a Fedora Account. This is required for all Fedora Contributors.

Making an SSH Key

If you do not have a SSH key yet, follow these steps:

# Create key.
ssh-keygen -t rsa
# Accept the default location (~/.ssh/id_rsa) and enter a passphrase.
# Write it down, you can not recover it if lost.

# Change permissions to your key and .ssh directory:
chmod 700 ~/.ssh
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa
chmod 644 ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

This public key (~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub) will be used for your Fedora account creation described in the section “Applying for an Account”.

Making a GPG Key

Generate a key by typing in a command line:

gpg --gen-key

A series of prompts guides you through the process. The default values suffice in almost all cases. Remember to choose a good password. A good password consists of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, punctuation, and other characters does not include any words or names, with or without substitutions is not the same as any other password used for other systems

In the resulting text, find your key ID in the statement that resembles pub 1024D/1B2AFA1C. Your key ID is the 8 character word after the slash (/). In the previous example, the GPG Key ID is 1B2AFA1C. Write down your key ID. Export your public key to a public server so that others can find it with the following command, substituting your key ID:

gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --send-keys GPGKEYID

This GPG key ID will be used for your Fedora account creation described in the section “Applying for an Account”.

Applying for an Account

1. To sign up for a Fedora account, first visit https://admin.fedoraproject.org/accounts and select New Account.
2. Fill in Username, Full Name and Email, and click Sign up!. Your password will be emailed to you.
3. Go back to https://admin.fedoraproject.org/accounts and log in with your password. The welcome page will be displayed, and it reminds you that CLA is not completed and that an SSH key is not submitted.
4. To submit public SSH key and GPG key ID, click My Account or go to https://admin.fedoraproject.org/accounts/user/edit.
5. In the Edit Account (user_name) page, enter your GPG key ID in GPG Key ID: field. For the public SSH key, click Browse... button located next to Public SSH Key: field and specify your public SSH key.
6. Telephone Number and Postal Address fields are also required to fill in for signing the CLA. These information is NOT accessible by others except admin groups. Please refer to Fedora Privacy Policy at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:PrivacyPolicy.
7. Other fields will be displayed by any other member by visiting the user's view page.
8. Now click Save! located at the bottom of this page to save your information.

Signing the CLA

You must complete the Contributors License Agreement, or CLA.

1. Visit https://admin.fedoraproject.org/accounts and login your account using your user name and password obtained from the previous process.
2. In the Welcome page, click complete the CLA or go to https://admin.fedoraproject.org/accounts/user/edit.
3. If the information of telephone number and postal address have not been provided yet, the Edit Account (user_name) page will be appeared. Otherwise Fedora Contributor License Agreement page will be displayed. Read through the agreement carefully and click I agree if you are happy to do so.
4. The user-view page is appeared and shows the CLA: field as CLA Done.

Introduce Yourself

1. Create a personal page at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Username. This is very useful for Fedora contributors to get to know and contact each other.
2. Post a short self introduction to the trans mailing list and to the list of your local team with instructions from https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N_Self_introduction. Please remember to include your FAS user name and your language. With this information, your language leader can identify you and approve you as a translator on his team.

Start using Transifex

Fedora uses Transifex to manage its localization workflow. These steps will guide you through the creation of a Transifex account and joining your team.

http://fedora.transifex.net/

Create a Transifex Account

1. Visit https://fedora.transifex.net/ and click on the top-right corner "Register"
2. Fill-in the form and click Register! You can use your Fedora email or the same email you used to create your Fedora account. Choose a good password (as described above). This password can be resetted if you forget it, though.
3. Check your email. An email should arrive soon to verify your email address. There will be a link in it -- click it!
4. You should be able to login on Transifex with your credentials now.

Joining your Fedora translation team

1. Visit the Fedora Teams page at https://www.transifex.net/projects/p/fedora/teams/.
2. If your language is there, click on it.
3. You should see a list of the members, the leader (coordinator). Click "Join this team" to ask to join the team.
4. The team leader will receive a notification about your request. He will check your information, and check whether you introduced yourself.
5. If all goes well, the maintainer will accept your application, and you'll receive a notification.

This may take between a few hours or days. If takes more, click on the maintainer's username on Transifex and send him a message asking him for more information.

Creating a Bugzilla Account

If you are asked to use Bugzilla, create an account by visiting https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/createaccount.cgi.

Translating

The translatable part of a software package is available in one or more PO files. Some projects might use other file formats as well, such as QT TS ones. These files may be maintained in any of a number of version control systems (VCSs) depending on the project, such as Subversion, Mercurial, and git. They may be hosted on either fedorahosted.org or other systems.

This chapter explains how to translate the projects which use Transifex to manage their L10n workflow. Translators can work on the web interface or the command-line to obtain and submit files. Before you start, you must first prepare the directories which hold your po files.

Fedora and Upstream projects
Using Transifex, you can contribute to both Fedora and Upstream projects. Fedora ones are those which Fedora is upstream for, ie. maintaining and handling. These are usually only used by Fedora.

Listing Translatable Fedora Projects

1. Visit https://www.transifex.net/projects/p/fedora/.
2. Choose the type of Fedora Projects you want to translate by choosing the appropriate Release. You should see Fedora itself, Fedora Documentation and other upstream projects. Click on the release you choose to contribute to.
3. The new page shows the full statistics for this release per language. Choose your language.
4. This page shows all translatable resources (ie. files) for this release. Click on one of the table rows to get information on the resource you're interested in.

Translate Online

The easiest way to translate is by using the Transifex Web Editor. It's an intuitive interface which does not require you to download files on your system and re-upload them back.

1. Follow the instructions above to locate the resource which interests you.
2. On the popup, you should see a "Translate Now" button. If you are logged-in on Transifex and a member of the language team, it should be clickable. Click it!
3. You should now be in the Transifex Web editor (codenamed Lotte). Go on and translate as much as you want, and at the end, click "Save and Exit".

Note: When you translate online, the file is automatically "Locked" and other people are notified about your work. Never translate something that another translator has already locked -- you might be overwriting his own work!

Translating Offline

(needs content)

Before you download any files, we suggest you prepare a directory to hold your files. The described structure below is an example only, and your structure can be formed differently.

mkdir -p ~/fedora-translations/

Obtaining and Translating Projects

Now that you have prepared a directory structure, you can download a file to translate. You may need to communicate with other translators in your language team to avoid conflict. If you are not sure, please contact your language coordinator. Also locking a file will avoid conflict.

(TO BE CONTINUED)