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## Translating Widelands ¶

[TOC] ¶

Like all development, translations are also done on [launchpad.net](http://www.launchpad.net). All translation work is done in your web browser and everybody can contribute translations in any language in seconds. ¶

**note**: there are [TranslationDictionaries](https://wl.widelands.org/wiki/TranslationDictionary/) for most common words - please use these words (like building names, ...) for a consistent translations ¶

The process is quite simple: ¶

1. Sign up on launchpad.net: [Click here](https://launchpad.net/+login) ¶
2. Tell Launchpad which languages you want to work with: [Click here](https://launchpad.net/people/+me/+editlanguages) ¶
3. Start translating widelands: [Click here](https://translations.launchpad.net/widelands) ¶
1. You can see all statistics of all languages Widelands is translated into. ¶
2. Click on your language, choose the text domain (widelands, maps, scenarios...) you want to work on. ¶
3. Start translating. ¶
4. If you don't know how to translate Wideland's words (names of wares, workers, buildings etc.), please look in the TranslationDictionary, if one exists for your language. If not, please use the translations already implemented in the game - and feel free to start a new Translation dictionary for your language. ¶
5. Further discussion is made in the [Forum Translation & Internalization](http://wl.widelands.org/forum/forum/12/) ¶

All translations will eventually land in a bzr branch via autoimport from launchpad. We will then merge them before a release, so your translation will make it to widelands. All new translations you make are under a BSD license - this basically means that other projects on Launchpad can use them too. ¶

Further reading: [Launchpad Translation Documentation](https://help.launchpad.net/Translations/StartingToTranslate) ¶

## How the translations are organized ¶
In some cases, you wish to find a specific string of text, either because it has not been translated yet, or you want to improve the current translation/fix a typo. The translation templates are split up rather logically, so as long as you know where to look, you'll most likely find it. The following descriptions of the various templates are partially based on a [question asked on Launchpad](https://answers.launchpad.net/widelands/+question/149790). ¶

Template | Description ¶
------- | -------- ¶
widelands | Contains everything not covered elsewhere, including all menus, options, error messages, buttons, dialogs and other things in the game. If it is something which does not seem to fit in any of the other templates, it is most likely located here. ¶
maps | Names and descriptions of maps which are shown when selecting which map to play. ¶
tribe-* | Names and descriptions of wares, workers and buildings (including help texts) for the tribe. ¶
scenario-tutorial1* | The tutorials available from the main menu ¶
scenario-* | The history/dialog in the campaigns. They are numbered like the order they appear in, and identified by atl (atlantean), emp (empire) or tbar (barbarian) prefix before the number. I guess t=barbarian as those maps were added first, when there was only one campaign. ¶
world | The trees, stones, creatures etc. on the map. ¶
win-conditions | Description of the various types of games and messages with "you have won/lost" ¶
texts | Includes the README, credits, the hints shown when loading the game, and similar things. ¶
map-plateau.wmf | The story for "The green plateau", a scenario. ¶
mp-scenario-* | Text used in the multiplayer scenarios, identifiable by name. ¶
scenario-dummy.wmf | The placeholder map informing the player that no further maps/campaigns exists. ¶
tribes | Texts common to all tribes. **NOTE:** These translations can't be shown in the game yet. ¶
widelands-console | Console/Command line messages shown when "widelands --help" is called. ¶



###An example ¶
Say for instance if you are playing the second mission in the barbarian campaign and notice some typo in the story text. Then it would would make sense to search in scenario-t02.wmf, since that contains all translations for the second map in the barbarian campaign. ¶


## Plural forms ¶

Our translation system (gettext) supports the use of proper plural forms. What do we mean by that? Let's take an example word - "cat". In English, we have: ¶

* "0 cats", "1 cat", "2 cats", "3 cats", ... ¶

This gives us a singular form for 1 and a plural form for all the rest, including 0. However, not all languages behave like this. For example in Scottish Gaelic, we have: ¶

* "0 cat", "1 chat", "2 chat", "3 cait", ... ¶

So, we have 4 different forms here! Therefore, gettext will present me with 4 different forms to translate for Scottish Gaelic, where there are only 2 in the English source language strings. ¶

If you aren't sure which plural form is which for your language, check out the [Localization Guide](http://localization-guide.readthedocs.org/en/latest/l10n/pluralforms.html). Let's have a look at an example on how to read the rules there. First, look for your language's code. Let's say you're translating into Czech, this will be the rule for *cs* then: ¶

*nplurals=3; plural=(n==1) ? 0 : (n>=2 && n<=4) ? 1 : 2;* ¶

Code | Meaning ¶
------- | -------- ¶
nplurals=3 | This language has 3 plural forms ¶
(n==1) ? 0 | The first form is for the number 1 (programmers like to count from 0 instead of from 1, so it has the ID 0) ¶
: (n>=2 && n<=4) ? 1 | The second form (ID 1) is for the numbers 2 - 4 ¶
: 2; | The third form (ID 2) is for all the rest ¶

If you need help with this, please don't hesitate to ask on the [forum](https://wl.widelands.org/forum/forum/12/). ¶


## How to deal with changes in the source language ¶

Because we're still in Alpha, it can happen that we need to break some of your translations. Sometimes, it is just a matter of a fixed typo, but Launchpad will kill your translations anyway. Sometimes, we can have pretty big changes, although we do our best to avoid them. There are two ways to deal with this: ¶

### Using an offline translation tool ¶

We highly recommend that you use an offline translation tool if you plan to translate a sizeable chunk or to work on this project continuously. The two most common tools that we can recommend are [Virtaal](http://virtaal.translatehouse.org/) and [Poedit](http://poedit.net/). They both work fine - pick the one you prefer. Launchpad offers you to download / upload a file when you're in the translation view, so you will get the files to translate from there. ¶

These offline tools come with a translation memory, which means that they will remember all the translations that you have saved, ever. So, if a file with a slightly changed source text comes along, the tool will show you a suggestion and also mark the differences. This is also convenient for translating strings that are similar - we have a number of those in the project, especially with the tribes. The tool will help you keep consistency with your translations and also reduce the amount typing that you need to do. ¶

### Accessing older versions of your translation on Launchpad ¶

If you haven't been using an offline tool, you can still access previous versions of your translation. For this, you will need to ¶

* [browse the revision history](http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~widelands-dev/widelands/trunk/changes) of the code. ¶

* Use the "<< Newer" / "Older >>" links on the bottom to navigate to a date, then click on the name of the revision you wish to access. ¶

* Click on "browse files at revision <number>" ¶

* In the "Filename" column, click on "po" ¶

* Select the translation template and then the file with your language code, e.g. "maps" and "de.po" for the German translation of the "maps" template. ¶

* If you don't fancy reading the source code version of the file, click "download file" on the top right. You will then need to get an offline translation tool like [Virtaal](http://virtaal.translatehouse.org/) and [Poedit](http://poedit.net/) if you haven't already installed one.