Users' guide

Settings (shortcut key "S")

First it is recomended to set up the programm. Click on "Settings" (shortcut key "s"). Set the language you want to translate to. Set also the name and e-mail of translator. It will be used only to be included in translated files, to let know further translators who did the translations before.

do not show plugins without translate file - some plugins, especially templates, have no language files, no messages to translate. In the list of plugins, they are only for your information. Checking this option will hide them in the list.

Style of line breaks lets you choose, which characters will be used as end of line.

WWW address with application - Here you can specify our own server (folder) that holds newest version of application.

Serendipity core, Additional plugins, Additional themes - Here you can set the access method (Repository type) and addres of remote repository (URL), from which the lang files are downloaded, and where to store them on your computer (Local folder). Default settings work well, in first it is not necessary to change it. If you observe difficulties, eg. downloading seem to be slow, you can try to change it. But you shoud read paragraph about protocols first.

Button Reset to default settings will set defaults for remote type and URLs for all three repositories.

Main window

"Update plugin list" button (shortcut key "U")

After clicking, the application will connect to the internet repository (the same as Spartacus uses), download the list of plugins and will try to know, which plugin includes translated language files. In this moment the application does not know the content of language files. It only knows, that some translated file exists. To prospect language files it is necessary to download them by clicking on following button.

In version 2.1, the native git protocol was fully implemented. This protocol needs to update of whole repository before it can know the list of plugins. It means that for git native protocol, the buttons "Update plugin list" and "Download files" do the same thing. The progress of acquiring list of plugins is now displayed in status bar.

"Download files" button (shortcut key "D")

The program will download language files - english files and also the files in selected local language (see Settings) and will compare them by content. Downloading can be lengthy, therefore there is bar that informs you about the downloading progress in status bar.

In version 1.6 was added feature, that downloads only changed files. Downloading is now a bit faster. Also you can now stop the downloading by bancel button. Since mentioned version, documentation files (documentation_xx.html, readmes, ChangeLogs) are also downloaded to enable you to translate also this documentation. See section Documentation translations.

"Compare files by content" button (shortcut key "C")

If there comes up a situation when files are not compared (e.g. after you translate documentation files), you can force the comparison by clicking this button. The programm compares locally stored files, nothing is downloaded from internet.

With all the features added along the time, the compare operation got a little bit complicated and lengthy. Its progress is displayed in status bar.

Status bar

All posibly lengthy operations are now observed and their progress is displayed here, on the bottom of main window. If you do not want to wait for the finish of operation, you can stop it by clicking the button Cancel.

If no lengthy operation is running, the status bare hides automatically.

Plugin table

Translation window

In the upper part of translation window, there are three fields - the name of edited message, the message in english and the message in local language.

Local language messages can be edited in the table with messages and also in the field with local message.

In the status bar, there is "original" x "modified" message. It signalises if the file has been changed or not. If the status is "modified", it is possible to save the file. The file will be stored in "plugins_translated" directory.

The translation table rows can be of 4 colors:

Translation of documentation

Documentation for plugins can be stored in various files. It should be placed in file named "documentation_en.html", but many plugins have only readmes "readme, readme.txt, pluginReadme.txt, credits.txt" or ChangeLogs instead. All of these files are downloaded and treated as documentation files.

As the format of documentation files varies a lot, you must inspect it on our own and make its translation in external text editor.

If you want to profit from benefits of tracking the status of documentation and of packing new files for publishing, you should only save your translated documentation under the plugin folder in "plugins_translated" directory and save it as "documentation_xx.html" where replace "xx" by language abbreviation.

From version 1.9 the application creates automatically the UTF-8 version of documentation files, if it does not exist. However it has limitations. The UTF-8 files can be different in small things. The application converts the html meta tag defining the charset to utf-8, to display the documentation file correctly in utf-8 encoding. Also the links to local files (e.g. images) are prefixed with "../" co link to original file. Remote links (starting with "http://" or "mailto:") are not prefixed. All other changes in utf-8 files must be done manually.

The documentation files in utf-8 encoding are created after clicking on "export translated files to zip file" in "translations" menu.

Protocols - access to internet repositories

ATTENTION! URL address of internet repository is bound with type of repository - eg. github.com has its git html web page, sourceforge.net offers its web frontend for cvs. Serendipity Translator does not check this dependencies, so you can make it not working, when you set it wrong, eg. when you write github.com in URL field and select cvs repository.

Protocol types:

How the program works internally

Filling in messages already set elsewhere

Directories it creates

Language file format

Syntax check of translated files

If you have php installed (it means when it is accessible through typing "php -l filename.php" through command line), then all files are passed to this external php parser to check the syntax. So you are warned always, when you make non-valid php code, that could potentially shutdown whole blog.

Export to zip file

Troubleshooting

Changelog