Translator documentation

Translate Dolibarr Application into your language

Dolibarr language files are already translated in several languages. English is the default and always complete. Other languages depend on contributions. This tutorial can help you complete a translation for a language not yet available or somehow incorrect. Dolibarr can be translated by three different means:

Manually using Transifex (Official and recommended method).
Manually editing language files
Completely automatic: autotranslator

Manual Translation using Transifex online service (recommended)

Transifex is a web application that provides an online platform for translation projects. It includes teams and discussion tools, translation memory, glossary, proofreading and a lot of other features. It is quite easy to use and all translations can be uploaded and downloaded through the web interface or using their TX client from a terminal. Transifex is an open source project and the "community edition" can be freely downloaded and installed, but we will use the online hosted service.

Using the web interface (for translators)

If you want to help to translate Dolibarr in your own language, check the project's page at https://www.transifex.com/dolibarr-association/dolibarr/

You can then register an account and request joining the project team for the language(s) you're targeting. A manager will have to accept your request, so please be patient.

Once accepted, you can start translating right away.

For more information, please check Transifex "Getting Started" introduction at http://docs.transifex.com/introduction/translators/ and the web editor tutorial at http://docs.transifex.com/tutorials/txeditor/

Note about en_US

The web interface can not be used to translate the en_US language which is source.

Any change for en_US language must be done in Dolibarr source code and submitted using a Pull Request on our GitHub repository.

Using TX command line client (for Dolibarr Category:Yoda team)

This describes how to use Transifex from the command line. However, this is reserved to Dolibarr admin users to synchronize Transifex with Dolibarr main sources.

More information can also be found on the Transifex Official documentation

TX Client configuration

First install TX Client. With Debian/Ubuntu/Mint:

apt-get install python-pip
pip install transifex-client

Then you have to initialize your TX environment. This is done by running tx init into dolibarr project root directory.

cd git/dolibarr
tx init

Accept to overwrite config file. Keep default value for Transifex instance, then enter your Transifex login and password.

After this, a .transifexrc has been created into your HOME dir and a generic config file has been created as .tx/config in project's root. So your directory's contents will look like that:

.
|-- build
|-- build.xml
|-- ChangeLog
|-- COPYING
|-- COPYRIGHT
|-- dev
|-- doc
|-- .gitignore
|-- htdocs
|-- INSTALL
|-- pom.xml
|-- quickbuild.xml
|-- README
|-- README-FR
|-- README.md
|-- robots.txt
|-- scripts
|-- test
`-- .tx

The current config file can be downloaded from https://github.com/Dolibarr/dolibarr/tree/develop/.tx , put it into .tx directory, overwriting the one created by tx init

This project configuration file is used to store the project’s details and the file-to-resource mappings.

That is a sample of what the config file contains:

[main]
host = https://www.transifex.com
lang_map = uz: uz_UZ

[dolibarr.admin]
file_filter = htdocs/langs/<lang>/admin.lang
source_file = htdocs/langs/en_US/admin.lang
source_lang = en_US
type = MOZILLAPROPERTIES

Here is an explanation of the sections and options used in the config file:

[main] section

In this section, we have project-wide options, such as the default transifex host for all projects. These can be overridden by each resource, in case it is needed.

[dolibarr.resource]

source_lang: this is the source language of the resource.
source_file: this points to the source file directly.
file_filter: here we hold the expression used to identify translation files under the specific project. not mandatory
trans.<lang>: this is used for translation files that don’t follow a common naming schema and the file expression cannot be used to track them. not mandatory
host: in case the project doesn’t use the default Transifex server as specified in the [main] section, it can override it using this option. not mandatory

TX Client use

Some useful information on tx commands.

tx status

Show status of translations

tx push

Used to push changes from your computer to Transifex server
Additional options for the tx push command are:

-h - Shows the help screen for the command
-l <lang> - Specify which translations you want to push (defaults to all)
-r <resource> - Specify the resource for which you want to push the translations (defaults to all)
-f - Push source files without checking modification times
--skip - Don't stop on errors. Useful when pushing many files concurrently.
-s - Push the source file to the server
-t - Push the translation files to the server
--no-interactive - Don't require user input when forcing a push

tx pull

Used to pull changes from Transifex server to your computer
Additional options for the tx pull command are:

-h - Shows the help screen for the command
-l <lang> - Specify which translations you want to pull (defaults to all)
-r <resource> - Specify the resource for which you want to pull the translations (defaults to all)
-a - Fetch all translation files from the server (even new ones)
-s - Force the fetching of the source file (default: False)
-f - Force download of translations files
--skip - Don't stop on errors. Useful when pushing many files concurrently.
--disable-overwrite - By default Transifex will fetch new translations files and replace existing ones. Use this flag if you want to disable this feature.
--minimum_perc=VALUE - Specify the minimum acceptable percentage of a translation in order to download it.

Examples

To pull translation files, you can use:

tx -d pull -l it_IT  # Get italian language only
tx -d pull -a   # Get all languages

To push source files, just type:

tx -d push -t -l it_IT [-r dolibarr.file]   # To push only a specific translation file
tx -d push -s  # To push source file

Manual Translation (not recommended)

To translate Dolibarr into another language, go to the langs directory and create a folder/directory named with the code language to translate (follow the existing format, for example en_US, en_GB, es_ES, de_DE, etc...). Then copy the files from an existing language directory (for example en_US/main.lang, en_GB/bills.lang), into the new language directory that you have just created.

These files have the format of key/value pairs in each line like the followings:

Code1 = translate phrase 1
Code2 = translate phrase 2
...
Coden = translate phrase n

Translate the phrases (the value portion of the key/value pairs) on the right side of the "=" as seen above, the code (the key portion) on the left side of "=" should remain unchanged. It is possible to translate the files one by one, without bringing them all at once. If a file has not been translated into the new language, Dolibarr uses English.

To have a localised (translated) string into the PHP code, all you have to do is load the language file and use the method to get the translated value, like this:

$langs->load("myfile"); // or use $langs->load("myfile@mymodule") if myfile.lang is inside directory htdocs/mymodule/langs/xx_XX   

print $langs->trans("CodeX")

An entry type;

CodeX = phrase X

must be present or added to the myfile.lang file.

Automatic Translation with autotranslator.php tool

Translator OS: All
Tool: autotranslator.php provided with Dolibarr in directory dev/translation.

This method is recommended when starting translation for a language not already initialized. If there is already a translation available but you need to add a missing key or correct errors, try to use method using Transifex (see later).

To make or update all files of a language code, just run the script:

php autotranslator.php lang_code_source lang_code_target GOOGLEAPIKEY

For example :

php autotranslator.php en_US pt_PT GOOGLEAPIKEY

to translate into Portuguese (pt_PT) using English (en_US) files.

All nonexisting files will be created, all existing files will be updated. The tool use Google translation service to find the translation value of a string, so a working Internet connection is required from station running the script. Also, a GOOGLEAPIKEY is required and Google charges a fee for using this service (20 euros / 1 000 000 of translated chars). Your PHP must also have permissions to write into htdocs/langs directory and must have curl functions available.

Distribute or include your translation into core source

Once you start translating, it's a smart decision to share it, so it can be included in the official code of Dolibarr. If you keep it for you, others will not be able to improve it when new terms are added or previous terms are modified, and you will still have to manage the translation on your own.

If you translated through the Transifex system, there's nothing to be done. Your translation will be included in the next version of Dolibarr. No additional work! In technical terms, the translation will be exported from Transifex and imported into Dolibarr by our developers, at least once every month.

If, however, you translated directly in Dolibarr files, then you will first have to transfer those translations to Transifex before they can be included. So, really, you should start translating into Transifex. If you send us your translation through a Pull Request on Github, sadly, it will be overwritten by the next import from Transifex, so it would be very short-lived.

Note:

The reference language is en_US and is always complete. You can find it in the htdocs/langs/en_US/ folder. All other language files are likely to be slightly or highly incomplete, depending on the language.

If you are developing a new module, you are likely going to need the addition of new language variables. This is done exclusively through the update of the en_US language (htdocs/langs/en_US/ folder). Just modify these files to add the variable you need and send the resulting folder as part of your Pull Request. Refer to the developer documentation to learn how to contribute code (you will need an account on https://github.com/Dolibarr/dolibarr.

Translate documentation on wiki

The wiki is written in 3 languages: English, French, and Spanish. If you want to enhance documentation on one of these languages, all you have to do is to create an account on this wiki. Then, you can edit existing pages to correct a bad translation or translate pages waiting for translation Category:Page_waiting_for_translation.

How to translate an existing page ?

Create a new page for the translated version.

Start by creating a new page for the translated version. To do this, you can access an non existant URL : for example https://wiki.dolibarr.org/index.php/Ma_nouvelle_page_en_français

The chosen title for the translated version of the page should be the translation of the title of the original English page.