Translating with Pootle
Creative Commons uses the online tool Pootle to manage translations of our tools. The Creative Commons installation of Pootle is maintained at http://translate.creativecommons.org. This page describes how to use Pootle to edit translations.
Applications currently managed by translate.creativecommons.org are:
- license engine and deeds
- search.creativecommons.org
- ccPublisher
- ccHost
Contents
First time setup
In order to be properly registered with Pootle, you must follow the next two sections. If you already have an account that lets you translate or make suggestions, skip to the next section, "Daily use."
Creating an account
Before you can translate an application you need to create an account. Go to http://translate.creativecommons.org and click the Log in link in the upper right-hand corner. Enter your desired username and password and click "Register." This will take you to the full registration page, which will ask you for your password again, your full name, and your email address. Click "Register" once more, and Pootle will send an activation code to the email address you specified. Follow the link to the activation page, and copy your activation code into the "Activation Code" box. Click "Activate Account", and your account is now activated.
Now you can log in by clicking the Log in button in the upper-right corner.
Adding a Language
Languages currently need to be assigned to projects by server administrators. If you are interested in translating a project into a new language, or adding a completely new language, email the project you're interested in and the language to webmaster@creativecommons.org.
Daily use
This section covers the steps needed to make use of the Pootle translation service once you have registered.
Starting from front page: Choosing what to translate
When you load the Pootle front page, you will see a list of available projects and languages.
You can approach the task of translating either by starting with the languages you want to translate into, or by starting with the project you wish to translate. Note that this front page has another feature: Click on any column, and that table will be sorted by that column. For example, after one click on "Overall completion" in the projects table, we see:
One more click would make reverse the order of the sort.
Click on the project you're interested in working on and a list of available languages will be displayed.
The project page
This takes you to the project page, in our case, for cc_org. It presents you with a list of available languages for the project.
Click on the language you would like to work on translating; if you do not see the language you want to work on listed, see the instructions below on adding a new language.
The message catalogs page
When you click on the language you'll be shown a list of message catalogs (.po files) for the selected project. Most projects have a single message catalog; ccPublisher has two, so each is listed, along with links for translating them.
The translation screen
If you want to edit or view all strings, you can simply click on the .po file you wish to edit. If you wish to view only the untranslated strings, click the link showing how many words are not yet translated. For this demonstration, we will review only the untranslated strings.
You can translate the string in the text box next to the English text, and then click Submit to save your translation and move to the next untranslated string. If you do not want to translate that string, just click Skip to move to the next untranslated string. Note that if you do not have the translate privilege for this language in this project, your translations will be stored as a suggestion.
Other editing functions
Getting Help
If you have questions about using Pootle or about the translation process, you can ask in the IRC channel, or on the cctools-i18n mailing list.
Administering translations
Using suggestions
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