Creating Translations

Translating Album Shaper into your native language is a relatively easy and straight forward process. To do so follow these instructions:

1. Identify your 639-1 two character language extension
2. Create a AlbumShaper_xx.ts file. Scroll down to the very bottom of AlbumShaper.pro to the translations section. Add a new line for your language using the extension you just found and the same format as before. Remember to put a trailing \ on the previous last line. For example, if AlbumShaper.pro ended as:

   bin/translations/AlbumShaper_sv.ts \ bin/translations/AlbumShaper_es.ts

   and your extension is xx, then the updated file would look like this:

   bin/translations/AlbumShaper_sv.ts \ bin/translations/AlbumShaper_es.ts \ bin/translations/AlbumShaper_xx.ts

   Next run "lupdate" from the same directory to create the bin/translations/AlbumShaper_xx.ts file.

3. Start up linguist and loadup the .ts file you just created. Read trolltech's documentation on linguist. Proceed to translate all items.
4. Save out your updated .ts file using File->Save. This allowes for easy later modifications to the translations by simply loading up the .ts file and making new modifiations. Translation files can be patched to work with new releases as the program changes over time so translators don't have to be working from scrach on every release.
5. Write out the qm file using File->Release.
6. Test out your translation. Copy the compiled translation file (bin/translations/AlbumShaper_xx.qm) over to Album Shaper's translations directory. If you installed Album Shaper using make install on a Unix system, this most likely is in:

   /usr/local/share/albumshaper/translations.

   On Windows look for the translations folder in the directory in which you installed Album Shaper, most likely:

   C:/Program Files/Album Shaper 2.0/translations

   If you're a Mac OSX, the translations folder is found within the application bundles Resources folder:

   Album Shaper 2.app/Contents/Resources/translations

   In order for Album Shaper to use a particular translation you'll need to tell your operating system what Locale you're in. On Unix systems you'll need to set the LANG environment varaible to your two character language extension (if you're using Bash, then try putting export LANG=xx in your ~/.login file) and from the command line before start Album Shaper. Windows and OSX users can do this within the Control Panel and System Preferences respectively.

7. When you're ready send me an email letting me know so I can get you an email address you can send me a zip file with the .ts file, the .qm file, and the text and handbook directories. I would also appreciate a screenshot of the program running in your native language for use on the web site!