No Subject

<p>
To be able to start a new translation you need the application's untranslat=
ed messages, which is stored in a so called pot file (suffix .pot). The pot=
 file for $PACKAGE can either be fetched from the web or generated from $PA=
CKAGE source code taken from CVS.
</p>

<h3>Fetching the pot file from the translation status pages</h3>

<p>
The easiest way to get the pot file is to fetch the pot file from the web. =
You'll find it on the GNOME translation status pages, located at:
</p>

<p>
<a href=3D"http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gtp/status/";>http://develope=
r.gnome.org/projects/gtp/status/</a>
</p>

<p>
If you browse these pages you should find a reference to $PACKAGE and be ab=
le to download a pot file for it.
</p>

<h3>Generating the pot file from $PACKAGE source code in CVS</h3>

<p>
Another way of getting the pot file is by using anonymous GNOME CVS access.=
 If you do intend to get the pot file this way you need to make sure that y=
ou have the software "intltool" installed on your computer. It should alway=
s be the latest available version; if it isn't, please upgrade before you b=
egin.
</p>

<p>
When you use CVS you need to checkout the "$PACKAGEMODULE" module and go to=
 the "po" directory of the module. Instructions on how to use anonymous GNO=
ME CVS access are at:
</p>

<p>
<a href=3D"http://developer.gnome.org/tools/cvs.html";>http://developer.gnom=
e.org/tools/cvs.html</a>
</p>

<p>
When you have checked out the module, go to the "po" directory inside it an=
d run:
</p>

<pre>
	intltool-update --pot
</pre>

<p>
This should create the pot file for you.
</p>

<h2>Translating</h2>

<p>
Once you have the pot file, rename it to xy.po, where "xy" in the file name=
 should be the language code of the language you are translating to (like "=
sv" for Swedish). Then it's just a matter of filling out the headers (if yo=
u are not sure about what the headers should be, ask your language team), a=
nd filling out the pairs:
</p>

<pre>
	msgid "This is a message from the application."
	msgstr ""
</pre>

<p>
In the example above, your translation should go inside the quotes after th=
e msgstr. Proceed this way until all messages in the file have a translatio=
n. If you are unsure about anything regarding this, ask your language team.
</p>

<p>
Once you have completed the translation, you should check
that it is encoded in the "UTF-8" encoding (we require translations to be e=
ncoded in UTF-8). You can make sure the file is encoded in UTF-8 by running=
:
</p>

<pre>
	msgconv -t UTF-8 xy.po > xy.po.new && mv xy.po.new xy.po
</pre>

<p>You should also make sure that the translation is syntactically correct.=
 You can do that by doing this:
</p>

<pre>
	msgfmt -cv xy.po
</pre>

<p>
If there is any error, please go back and correct it before continuing. Whe=
n all errors are gone, send the translation to a person in your language te=
am that has GNOME CVS access, and ask him/her to please commit it. If you s=
end the file by mail, it's usually a good idea to first compress the file w=
ith "gzip", since otherwise some mail software may do bad things and not pr=
eserve the encoding.
</p>

<p>
That's it. If you have any questions regarding the PO format, gettext or tr=
anslations, please ask your language team. If the question is specific to $=
PACKAGE (such as the messages themselves or $PACKAGE code), ask $PACKAGE
developers.
</p>

<p>
Thanks for your help!
</p>
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