[Koha-translate] Translate

[Ricardo Dias Marques]

Olá Jaqueline (Hi Jaqueline)!

On Thu, Oct 29, 2009,  <jaqueline at lsi.cefetmg.br> wrote:

> I am using the virtual machine with the installed koha, which is
> available on the site of koha.org. I would like someone to explain how
> to use the koha in Portuguese. Or if someone had a manual could pass
> me by email of how to translate this software so I can use it in the
> institution where I work (CEFET MG) Brazil.

I'm Portuguese (I was born and live in Portugal). At this time, the
"standard" (European) Portuguese ("Português") translation for Koha
3.0.x is much more complete than the Brazilian Portuguese
("Português(Brasil)") version, specially for the Intranet / Staff
Client (the Koha "area" / interface that is meant to be used by
Librarians).

You can see this difference by comparing the following charts:

Koha Pootle: Português
http://translate.koha.org/pt/

... with:

Koha Pootle: Português (Brasil)
http://translate.koha.org/pt_BR/


So, at this time, I would advise you to use the European Portuguese
translation, specially for the Staff Client, instead of using the
Brazilian Portuguese one.

To do this, you need to set up two System Preferences in Koha, namely
the "language" and "opaclanguages", that are briefly described here:

I18N/L10N - Koha- Integrated Library System
http://koha.org/documentation/manual/3.0/administration/global-system-preferences/i18n-l10n

You do this setup in the "I10N/L10N" tab of "System Preferences" page
of the "Administration" area of Koha.

Usually, this tab is available at:

http://host:8080/cgi-bin/koha/admin/systempreferences.pl?tab=I18N/L10N

(replace "host" by the IP address or hostname / FQDN - Fully Qualified
Domain Name - of your Koha server)

Because of the differences in the completeness of the Portuguese
translations, you may choose "pt-BR" for "opaclanguages" (or "pt-PT"),
but I *strongly* advise you to choose "pt-PT" for "language" (and NOT
"pt-BR"!).


At this time, I and a friend of mine (Rafael António) have approval
privileges for the European Portuguese translation, but we don't have
those privileges for Brazilian Portuguese... and I think we should NOT
have them (it makes more sense to me that a Brazilian "native speaker"
is in charge for approving Brazilian translations).

Obviously, considering the many similarities between the two variants
of Portuguese, I think that it would make sense to use the European
Portuguese translation for the staff client as the "base" for the
Brazilian translation (and then to change the "relevant" strings from
European Portuguese to Brazilian Portuguese). Hey! Considering the
*many* Open Source Projects in which us (Portuguese) benefited from
the existing Brazilian Portuguese translations to create standard
Portuguese translations, it's only fair that you (Brazilian) benefit
from *our* efforts, for a change! :)

If you wait a week or two, you'll get an even more updated translation
for the Staff Client. Why?
Let me explain: SAPO - http://www.sapo.pt - is probably the oldest
Portuguese web directory (similar to Yahoo). SAPO is running the 2nd
edition of "SAPO Summerbits"  (similar to "Google Summer of Code" -
http://code.google.com/soc/ ), since June.
I had proposed myself as the Mentor (and Rafael António as co-mentor)
for finishing the "Translation and Localization of Koha to Portugal /
Portuguese". And that project has been accepted as one of the 10
projects sponsored by SAPO!  :)
So, during these Summer months, a Portuguese Ms.C student (Marta
Grachat) advanced the (standard) Portuguese translation until now (end
of October), mentored by me and Rafael António. I have yet to review /
push the last changes made by Marta to Chris Cormack (Koha's
Translation Manager) so he can review them and submit to Koha's
repository. When we do that, you (and everyone else) will get an
updated translation.


If you think that you're "up to the task" of "leading" the Brazilian
Portuguese translation, I suggest that you apply here, in this same
mailing list. Chris Cormack regularly checks this mailing list and
he's the one that may approve or reject "translation approvers".

I hope this information helps you, in any way.

Cheers,
Ricardo Dias Marques
lists AT ricmarques DOT net
Installation Guide for Installing Koha 3 on openSUSE 11
http://wiki.koha.org/doku.php?id=opensuse_11.0