VRTool translations

help translating vrtool

VRTool is already available in english, purtuguese and french. If you want to help translating the software to your language, please read on. As a benefit from this work, you get to use vrtool in your home language and the gratitude from nearby vrtool users. To share translation, please contact the webmaster.

VRTool translation to other languages

To translate the program interface to your language, a translation file (default.mo) must be provided in the appropriate language directory. For example, the portuguese translation is stored in the directory:

\program files\vrtool\locale\pt\LC_MESSAGES\

The portuguese translation source file (default.po) is provided to be used as a template for translations to other languages. Unicode languages are not supported at this time (only iso-8859-1 occidental languages).

PO editors

vrtool uses GNU Gettext for Delphi localization library. Localization files can be edited with the windows notepad, but there are more convenient and free productivity tools for translation:

They are:

Gorm - good for non-technical people
poedit - good for programmers - I used poEdit for the translation and recommend it.

How to translate

To begin a new translation follow these steps:

1) Using the two letter code for your language (ex: fr for french, es for español etc), create a new directory. In the example below I used fr for french:

\program files\vrtool\locale\fr\LC_MESSAGES\

2) Copy all files from \program files\vrtool\locale\pt\LC_MESSAGES\*.*

to \program files\vrtool\locale\fr\LC_MESSAGES\*.*

3) Use program poedit or gorm to translate file default.po to your language.

Translation guidelines:

Observe the size of original text, or translation might not fit in the space reserved for it. Some properties (like captions) have fixed sizes, while others are automatically resized (like hints)
Translate only items that are translated in portuguese translation. Ignore all other items (not translated).
Observe the original text structure (including spaces before or after the text, \n, \", commas, points etc). Using poEdit, press Alt-C to copy the original to the translation, so you can translate by changing the text.

4) In poEdit, select >Catalog >Configurations and change from "portuguese/Brazil" to your "language/Country". Also fill the translation author name and e-mail.

5) When finished, save and compile the translation. This will save default.po and create a new default.mo. Only the file default.mo needs to be distributed to users.

Testing your translation

To test the translation, just load vrtool. If your system is configured for the translation language, vrtool will detect and automatically use the new translation. Or else you can write in the dos prompt:

>set LANG=fr

>vrtool

This will inform the program to use a french translation, even if the computer is using another language. The program default language is en.

If you find a typo or a mistake in your translation, do that: