Translation Workflow

Much of the information that was on this page is now outdated. How-Tos exist for all the common contributor tasks, including translation, and can be found linked from Tasks and Tools

This page contains reminders only.

Smilies cause problems for translators. Please replace any with [[Image:Face-smile.png|11px]]
Links such as [[Translation_Workflow]] also cause problems for translators. Please replace such links with the equivalent of [[Translation_Workflow|Translation Workflow]].
Any image that is referenced as [[File:somename.png]] should be changed to the more specific [[Image:somename.png]]
Code intended as input should use the Input template: {{Input|1=input text (can be multi-line or single)}}
Terminal output is treated in the same way, with the Output template: {{Output|1=terminal output}}
Check that the page has a Category statement as in [[Category:System]]

Any page that is seen to be seriously and hopelessly out of date should not be marked for translation during the migration period. Those pages can be translated afresh at the later stage.
Where images are seen to be out of date, they should be amended before marking for translation.
Pages with 'Manual' in the title will be re-marked for translation when the author tells us that it has significant changes for a newer version.

Warning

*When editing pages that are already marked for translation, you will see section markers similar to . Usually each paragraph is one section. You should not change the markers, unless you fully rewrite a section, in which case you should simply remove the old marker. When adding new sections, you don't need to add marker to it – the marker will be added automatically when your changes are approved for translation. If you want to move a section, move also the section marker with it.

Tasks and notes for Translators

You must request that your user account is added to the group of Translators. Only listed Translators, logged in, can see the prompts and create translations.
Ensure that a table of Category translated words for your language exists. You can check using the links on http://userbase.kde.org/Translation_Help_Needed
Links retain the URL (except where they need to point to a localised page) but the accompanying comment text is translated. Wherever possible use "Special:myLanguage/page-path" as the link, as this automates the finding of localised pages, displaying the natural language of the reader whenever possible.

Some pages were translated very early on in the life-cycle of KDE 4.x and never updated. It's probably best to ignore these for the first run through, so we will not mark such pages as ready for translation.
If you are fluent in languages other than English, you can take advantage of translations in those languages (if any), by going into your preferences and adding those languages to your list under section Editing.
The final line of a page will normally be a Category statement. Please leave the word Category untranslated, and translate the category name according to the tables listed on Translation_Help_Needed
It would be helpful if, when you have translated a page, you put a 'Watch this Page' on the associated discussion page (for example, Talk:Glossary/de). If points are being made that should be included in the documentation, please draw the attention of the administration team.

Tip

Monitor the status of your language statistics by monitoring the page http://userbase.kde.org/Special:LanguageStats/your-language-code

Using the new Translate extension - on-line Translation

At almost all times there will be someone on irc.freenode.net, #kde-www, who can answer questions.

Getting a Better Understanding of the Process

For a fuller description of the process, read the description on the developers' website