Translate PO or PROPeRTIES files in PyBossa

This project shows how you can translate a po or properties file in a PyBossa server.

Lots of projects and applications use gettext technology to localize their strings. The same happens for Firefox extensions with the PROPERTIES files for their extensions and addons.

This project shows how you can crowd-translate those projects using PyBossa technology.

Translating PO files

For translating PO files all you have to do is to pass the pot file generated by gettext to pbs:

pbs create_project
pbs update_project
pbs add_tasks --task-file=messages.pot --tasks-type=po --redundancy=3

Those three commands will create the translations project for you, add the templates, and upload the strings to translate.

NOTE: we strongly recommend to change the name of the project to something like: project-to-language. For example: pybossa-to-spanish

Now you can invite your users and volunteers to translate the strings. When all the strings are translated, you will create a new project to vote for the best translated string:

pbs --project project_voting.json create_project
pbs --project project_voting.json update_project

Now, we've to get the translated strings and pass them to the new project:

python vote.py
pbs --project project_voting.json add_tasks --task-file=/tmp/translations_voting_tasks.json --redundancy=5

And use a different task presenter:

pbs update_project --tasks-template template_voting.html

The first command will download all the translated strings, and transform them for the second project. It creates a file in the /tmp/ folder named translations_voting_tasks.json, and that file is the one that we used to populate the second project.

Once all the tasks of this second project have been completed, now you can generate your new mo file with this command:

python create_mo.py

It will create an mo file for you in the /tmp folder. Copy and paste that file in your translations folder and you will be done.

Translating Firefox extensions and/or addons

Firefox extensions and addons use PROPERTIES files to localize them. The PyBossa pbs command supports that file too, so all you have to do is follow the same steps as before, but with slightly changes.

For creating the tasks you will pass the properties file:

pbs add_tasks --task-file=en-US.properties --tasks-type=properties --redundancy=3

Then, run the voting command as before, and once the voting has been completed, run the following command to create the translated PROPERTIES file:

python create_properties.py

This will create a new file in the /tmp/ folder named file.properties.

License

Please, see COPYING file.