[Anubad] Getting started with translating Mozilla Projects

[Runa Bhattacharjee]

Hello,

This document ought to have been out there much earlier, but that did
not happen. Considering the increasing levels of interest in Mozilla
projects and participating in translations being one of the areas of
participation, one can follow these quick steps to explore how the
translation projects work.

# Projects that one can start with quickly:

Firefox, Thunderbird, Firefox OS

# Where to get the source content from:

The Mozilla mercurial repo: http://hg.mozilla.org/ hosts both the
source and the translated content. This can be checked out anonymously
or downloaded directly from the browser. Follow the links below for
each of the projects mentioned above:

Firefox (Aurora is the primary branch which sees most translations)

Source: http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-aurora/
Translation: http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/l10n/mozilla-aurora/bn-IN/

Thunderbird:

Source: http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/comm-aurora/
Translation: http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/l10n/mozilla-aurora/bn-IN/
(uses the same repo as Firefox, but contains some specific folders for
the mail client component)


Firefox OS:

Source: http://hg.mozilla.org/gaia-l10n/en-US/
Translation: http://hg.mozilla.org/gaia-l10n/bn-IN/


# Identifying the parts to translate

For each of the above links, use the 'files' link at the top of the
page to view the entire tree of folders and files. The files with the
extension of .dtd and .entities are in need of translation. Explore
and download a file (either from the source or the translation repo)
that seems in need of some attention, open it with a text editor and
translate.

An example can be seen here:

Original file: http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-aurora/raw-file/2d230ceff8fc/browser/locales/en-US/chrome/browser/browser.dtd
Translated file:
http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/l10n/mozilla-aurora/bn-IN/raw-file/8115a2714589/browser/chrome/browser/browser.dtd


Using the two links above you can identify which parts of the entries
need to be retained and which to translate. The top-level directories
of interest are listed here:

http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/l10n/mozilla-aurora/bn-IN/file/8115a2714589


Please note, that this exercise is to familiarize the new translators
on where to get the content and how to translate. In reality, we
recommend the new translators to be in touch with the experienced
translators to be mentored into the process. The mailing list and the
IRC channel #ankur.org.in (Freenode) can be used for this purpose.


# Getting the translations included into the Mozilla repositories

While accessing the content for the Mozilla projects is easy (through
the mercurial links, as mentioned above), submitting it back into the
repository is not so. The repository is the *main* place that holds
the source code+content that eventually gets packaged and released as
the various Mozilla products. Hence access to this repository is
restricted.

In this case, translators are requested to send in their translated
files to this mailing list (anubad at lists dot ankur dot org dot in),
so that it can be reviewed and then committed into the repository by
the team members who have access to the repository (runa, biraj and
sayak). This ensures that we are completely sure of what we are
committing into the repository and also prevents the new translators
from going through a process which at this point of time may seem a
little difficult.

# Easier translation methods and online tools

There are many, but precisely for this reason for the Bengali India
projects we do not recommend using any at this point of time. The same
translation projects are hosted on multiple online translation tools
which can lead to duplication of efforts by translators and also does
not guarantee a timely inclusion of the content into the repository.
Bottomline, we want to make sure that the valuable work the Bengali
(India) translators do is not wasted.


This is a short version of the document that is currently in the works
and should be up on the ankur.org.in wiki very soon. Until that time,
please feel free to ask for details on this mailing list or on the IRC
channel about translating Mozilla projects.

Thanks
Runa


-- 
http://about.me/runa.bhattacharjee
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Runab
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Runab_WMF