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Creating translations

General introduction

This application uses files to store content, which can be translated to several languages. These files are grouped together as packages. One package fits to one translation. For example, this might be a German or an English package. Each package contains texts and graphics. In the text files, IDs are assigned texts. The IDs are identical to the corresponding tokens in the skin packages.

Editing translations

If you have found an error in a translation package and want to correct it, you will find the appropriate files in the directory "languages/". One subdirectory per package. Each of the packages contains files which match the names of the plug-ins which they are intended to be used with.

Editing these files is possible easy. Open the file in a text editor of your choice. The files use a XML-like format. Avoid the use of HTML tags in these documents. Using embedded tags is permitted. Note that no line breaks are permitted within the text flow. To insert a line break, use the embedded tag [br].

If you edit a translation, it is recommended to overwrite the original data. Instead make a copy of the file as a new language pack.

Generating new language packs

To translate the text messages of the application to a new language, save a copy of the directory "languages/de" and the related configuration file "deutsch.config" under a new name. You should use the name of the language for which you want to provide the translation. For example "languages/es".

You can add your personal information, such as name of the author, or a brief description. Edit these settings in the configuration file of the language package. You can also insert an appropriate graphic. Usually a national flag. To do so replace the file "flagge.gif". The name of the file is specified in the configuration file under the id "LANGUAGE_INFO.LOGO".

Author: Thomas Meyer, www.yanaframework.net