Translating the MySQL GUI Tools =============================== How it Works ------------ Internationalization (i18n) of the gui tools is done through gettext, including in the Delphi/Windows versions of the tools. Basically that means that each application will have 2 big po files containing all messages: one for the mysql-gui-common library and one for the application itself. Sometimes the application may have more po files for some extra libraries. Naturally, common libraries only need to be translated once. Once the po file is translated, you should send it to us and we will include it in the source tree, so that it is available when you install the next release of the tool. Instructions to install the translated file yourself are given later in this file. How To Translate ---------------- The source distribution of each tool should have a directory called po for each component, such as mysql-gui-common/po and mysql-administrator/po These directories contain previously translated messages and the template file, which has an extension of .pot 1. Starting from scratch You may use the .pot file as a starting point, in that case copy the .pot file to <lang-code>.po and translate that file. lang-code must be the code of the language which you can look up here: http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_chapter/gettext_15.html 2. Translate the po file The po file will contain a header section where it requests for several pieces of information such as the language name, translator info etc. Fill it as much as you can, if you're not sure of something, you can leave it as is and we will fill it. The rest of the file consist of several lines like this: #: MySQLResultSet.pas:887 msgid "%d rows fetched so far." msgstr "" #: source/linux/MGConnectDialog.cc:386 msgid "(last connection)" msgstr "" Lines beginning with # are comments. You can add your own comments above the automatically inserted ones in case you need. The line that begins with msgid is the original message to be translated and should not be touched. msgstr is the translated version of the string in msgid. Sometimes, the string will contain special sequences like %i, %d or %s. These will be replaced by some text or number when it's displayed, so you should repeat the same sequences in the same order in the translated message. The amount of text between each one doesn't matter, but the number and type does. %f, %i and %d are replaced with numbers, %c with a character and %s is replaced by a text string. So, the Portuguese (pt.po) version of the example above would be: #: MySQLResultSet.pas:887 msgid "%d rows fetched so far." msgstr "%d linhas buscadas até o momento." # some extra comment here #: source/linux/MGConnectDialog.cc:386 msgid "(last connection)" msgstr "(última conexão)" 3. (optional) Compile the po file You can compile the po file into the binary format used by the application with the following command: msgfmt -c --strict <lang>.po -o <lang>.mo You can then copy the <lang>.mo file to the corresponding locale directory for the tool, with the file name <application>.mo Replace <application> with the app name (mysql-admnistrator, mysql-query-browser etc) or mysql-gui-common. In Linux, the localized message directory is usually in /usr/share/locale/<lang>/LC_MESSSAGES 4. Updating translation files To update an already existing but outdated po file, you must first call the following command, which will add new messages or comment out deleted ones: msgmerge <lang>.po <newfile>.pot Once the po file is updated, you can review it to translate any new messages. Notes ----- Linux and Windows applications share the same po file. That means that during translation you may see messages that you will never see in the version of the app you are using in your platform. Some other times you will see the same messages repeated with different wording or with minor spelling differences. If you notice such cases, please mark such messages with a comment, starting with ## like: ##DUPE for duplicated or very similar messages (like New Catalog vs New catalog) ##TYPO for messages with spelling errors please remind us when submitting the translation of such things. You can send translated files to the GUI tools mailing list (http://lists.mysql.com/gui-tools) or submit them in the bug tracking system at http://bugs.mysql.com
