Is there a way to translate application/games?
 

Hello,

There is an easy way to translate Maemo OS by translating .po/.mo files located in usr/share/locale using poedit program, shown in this thread: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=50980

Is there a similar way to translate any application/game?

Like locating the files that are responsible for the language output in the source of the package?

Thanks in advance.

Re: Is there a way to translate application/games?
 

It's the same mechanism usually - if the author of the software uses it (which most do).

Are you trying to provide translations for existing software?
Or do you want to write new software and find a way to have it translated?

Re: Is there a way to translate application/games?
 

I want to provide translated versions of the currently available apps/games.

Re: Is there a way to translate application/games?
 

What I do is:

a) Check if the application is in http://www.transifex.net/ - most probably it's not, far to few developers use this infrastructure, but if it is: start there.

b) If it's not in transifex, download the source package, look for the pot/po-files there and start working on them with an editor (such as poedit).

c) Put the the mo-file you created on your own N900 and look if it behaves well.

d) send it to the developer or open a bug in the projects bugzilla with the po-file attached.

Re: Is there a way to translate application/games?
 

Sounds easy to do, But can you provide me with a way/guide on how to deal with the application source, how to locate the .po files there? Do i depackage the .deb and search for the .po files in it?

Please forgive my ignorance, i know my questions are really stupid :o

Also can i keep the translated package for myself and share the translated .deb with other people without sending it to the author?

Re: Is there a way to translate application/games?
 

If you can't find the application listed on Transifex, this is roughly how you can do a new translation from the source package (in case the application is already "prepared" for translations, i.e. "gettextized"). Please be sure to contact the application maintainer first, as (s)he will be able to tell you exactly how translations are handled for that specific project. Sometimes it makes more sense to use the development repository (SVN, Git, etc..) instead of the source package, for example. In other cases, maybe the app has already been translated into your language, but the new translations have not been released yet.

Here's a quick HOW-TO for packages in Maemo.org Extras:

• Go to http://maemo.org/packages/
• Search for the package you want to translate
• Click on the search result
• Select the "Fremantle Extras-Devel free armel" package
• Click on the link for "Source:"
• Download the .tar.gz file
• Extract the downloaded file and look for a messages.pot file
• If you find the messages.pot file, rename it to yourlang.po (e.g. de.po for german) - alternatively, use an existing .po file and copy it to yourlang.po
• Open the .po file with tools like poedit, translate and then send it to the maintainer (the maintainer can be found on the maemo.org/packages page as well)

It depends on the license of the application - sometimes you have to share the source if you distribute the binary. What you need to do is set up some kind of build environment (Scratchbox) and build the package with your added translation from source and install that on your device (that's the recommended way - it would work if you compile the .po file to a .mo file [poedit does this automatically] and copy it to the right folder on the device, but that's really awkward and something you don't really want to do).

In short: The easiest (and most sane) way to do this is to submit the translated .po file to the application author and wait for an updated package.

Re: Is there a way to translate application/games?
 

Qt has its own translation system
http://doc.trolltech.com/4.6/internationalization.html
Basically it allows users to provide their own translation packages

Re: Is there a way to translate application/games?
 

@thp: Thanks very much, pretty much what i wanted to know. :)

@tommiasp: But thats only for Qt based apps, right?

Re: Is there a way to translate application/games?
 

I downloaded the source of Call-forward app.

i found po directory and it has a file called: POTFILES and POTFILES.in

also found .deps directory, contains: call-forward.Po

i tried to open them with poedit, and it doesn't show any strings.

also i didn't find messages.pot in the package

any of these are related to the language files?

Re: Is there a way to translate application/games?
 

OK, this one's probably easy - I think... ;)

http://repository.maemo.org/extras/p...ing_1.0.tar.gz
is the source package.

It contains a ./po directory. Within this directory, you'll find:
en_GB.po
fi_FI.po
pl_PL.po

to start with.

Leave the other files alone. The package maintainer should adapt them if necessary. I'd take the English en_GB.po as a template, translate it (I speak german, so I'd save it as de_DE.po then) and ask the package maintainer if he wants it.

Re: Is there a way to translate application/games?
 

Thanks Benny that did the trick :D

Can i upload the source to the autobuilder after i've finished translating? will i get a .deb package out of it?

Re: Is there a way to translate application/games?
 

Autobuilder is not just a build tool. It is closely related to extras repositories. You can't just take someone's package and send it to autobuilder.

Re: Is there a way to translate application/games?
 

i Finished translating it to my language and added a "ar_SA.po" file into the source.

is there anyway to get it working with my language without sending it to the maintainer?

Re: Is there a way to translate application/games?
 

OK - where did my message go? Have to type again ;)

Well:
Of course you *should* send the file to the maintainer. That's the whole point of free software, right? ;)

ar_SA is arabic, isn't it? We might run into problems there... but just try.

I don't have my N900 with me ATM, so I'll have to do some guesswork, but it might be helpful.
On you N900, change to /usr/share/locale/en_GB/LC_MESSAGES (or something similar ... maybe it's in /usr/share/locale/en/LC_MESSAGES?) and try to find a file that ends in *.mo and starts with something that sounds like the name of the application. Maybe its callforwarding.mo? Don't know. Why do you need to do this? Because you want to find out the correct name for *your* file. It will not be ar_SA.po in the end.

Once you found what you were looking for, rename your file to exactly the same name and put it into
/usr/share/locale/ar/LC_MESSAGES/
or
/usr/share/locale/ar_SA/LC_MESSAGES/
depending on which is available.

Now here's the thing I don't know:
Is there an ar-locale you can choose on the N900 at all? Probly, you built a translation for it, but how far is it supported through the system? No idea. Also, I don't know if it makes a difference if you put it in the ../ar/ or ../ar_SA/ directory. What I believe is that the ../ar/-directory is safe enough... But I'm not sure.

What should happen now is:
You set your country/language settings to Arabic.
Verify that the language is really set to Arabic by typing
echo $LC_MESSAGES
in the terminal. The output shout be "ar" or "ar_SA".
If you start the application now, it will look up the current locale, go into the corresponding directory under /usr/share/locale, and fetch "its" file from there. (This is why it is important that the file has the right name. Otherwise the application wouldn't know which file to choose.)

Sounds more complicated than it is. The only thing I don't know is if you can set your locale to Arabic at all on the N900, but that you know better than I do ;)

Re: Is there a way to translate application/games?
 

Hey benny, I can't thank you enough for your help!

ar_SA is arabic yes, i added it to the system myself ( you can see the package "Arabic Localization" in devel repo.

Its _SA because all languages are like eng_gb, pl_po ... etc. AR alone simply didn't work and wasn't added to the system languages.

Its completely supported through the system, translated every .po file in usr/share/locale. i did verify and the output was ar_SA.

i thought about putting the .mo files in /usr/share/locale/ar/LC_MESSAGES/ before, but whats the point? I'm the only one who will see it translated.

Maybe you did get the point of my whole post :confused: :

I used to be part of a team in another forum that translates Symbian apps into arabic, now that i moved to Maemo (thankfully i did) I'm trying to do the same with Maemo apps, and after its translated i share it with fellow arab forum members...

I heard that i can turn the translated source into a .deb package using scratch box environment in Maemo SDK, so i'm downloading the SDK at the moment, hopefully i will learn how to make a package.

Thanks again. :)

Re: Is there a way to translate application/games?
 

so you want to distribute it as a deb, but not as part of the original application package? i'm not sure if this makes sense at all or is good practice. what will you do if the original application gets upgraded? how would you ensure that people who use the app even know that the translation exists? i'm sceptical. technically it shouldn't be too difficult though.

Re: Is there a way to translate application/games?
 

I get the following error when trying to install Maemo SDK:

Inconsistency detected by ld.so: rtld.c: 1192: dl_main: Assertion `(void *) ph->p_vaddr == _rtld_local._dl_sysinfo_dso' failed!

Any idea whats that?

Re: Is there a way to translate application/games?
 

When i write the command:

sudo chmod +x ./maemo-sdk-install_5.0.sh

./maemo-sdk-install_5.0.sh


i get:

DISPLAY already set.
Installation environment already set.
Added debconf frontend setting in scratchbox.
Inconsistency detected by ld.so: rtld.c: 1192: dl_main: Assertion `(void *) ph->p_vaddr == _rtld_local._dl_sysinfo_dso' failed!

any solution :S


Edit: fixed it using: sysctl abi.vsyscall32=0