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authorTimothy Pearson <[email protected]>2011-11-08 12:31:36 -0600
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+\title Guide to the Qt Translation Tools
+\granularity chapter
+
+\chapter Introduction
+
+Qt provides excellent support for translating applications into local
+languages. This Guide explains how to use Qt's translation tools for
+each of the roles involved in translating an application. The Guide
+begins with a brief overview of the issues that must be considered,
+followed by chapters devoted to each role and the supporting tools
+provided.
+
+\link Release... Chapter 2: Release Manager \endlink is aimed at the
+person with overall responsibility for the release of the
+application. They will typically coordinate the work of the software
+engineers and the translator. The chapter describes the use of two
+tools. The \l lupdate tool is used to synchronize source code and
+translations. The \l lrelease tool is used to create runtime
+translation files for use by the released application.
+
+\link Translators Chapter 3: Translators \endlink is for translators.
+It describes the use of the \e {Qt Linguist} tool. No computer
+knowledge beyond the ability to start a program and use a text editor
+or word processor is retquired.
+
+\link Programmers Chapter 4: Programmers \endlink is for Qt
+programmers. It explains how to create Qt applications that are able
+to use translated text. It also provides guidance on how to help the
+translator identify the context in which phrases appear. This
+chapter's three short tutorials cover everything the programmer needs
+to do.
+
+\section1 Overview of the Translation Process
+
+Most of the text that must be translated in an application program
+consists of either single words or short phrases. These typically
+appear as window titles, menu items, pop-up help text (balloon help),
+and labels to buttons, check boxes and radio buttons.
+
+The phrases are entered into the source code by the programmer in
+their native language using a simple but special syntax to identify
+that the phrases retquire translation. The Qt tools provide context
+information for each of the phrases to help the translator, and the
+programmer is able to add additional context information to phrases
+when necessary. The release manager generates a set of translation
+files that are produced from the source files and passes these to the
+translator. The translator opens the translation files using \e {Qt
+Linguist}, enters their translations and saves the results back into
+the translation files, which they pass back to the release manager.
+The release manager then generates fast compact versions of these
+translation files ready for use by the application. The tools are
+designed to be used in repeated cycles as applications change and
+evolve, preserving existing translations and making it easy to
+identify which new translations are retquired. \e {Qt Linguist} also
+provides a phrase book facility to help ensure consistent
+translations across multiple applications and projects.
+
+Translators and programmers must address a number of issues because
+of the subtleties and complexities of human language:
+
+\list
+\i A single phrase may need to be translated into several different
+forms depending on context, e.g. \e open in English might become \e
+\OEFFNEN, "open file", or \e aufbauen, "open internet connection", in
+German.
+\i Keyboard accelerators may need to be changed but without
+introducing conflicts, e.g. "\&Quit" in English becomes "Avslutt" in
+Norwegian which doesn't contain a "Q". We cannot use a letter that is
+already in use -- unless we change several accelerators.
+\i Phrases that contain variables, for example, "The 25 files selected will
+take 63 seconds to process", where the two numbers are inserted
+programmatically at runtime may need to be reworded because in a
+different language the word order and therefore the placement of the
+variables may have to change.
+\endlist
+
+The Qt translation tools provide clear and simple solutions to these
+issues.
+
+\RULE
+
+Please send comments and suggestions regarding this tutorial to the
+\link mailto:[email protected]?subject=Translation_Tutorial Qt doc
+team \endlink. Bugs in the tools should be sent to \link
+mailto:[email protected]?subject=Translation_Tutorial
+qt-bugs\endlink.
+
+\input linguist-manager.leaf
+\input linguist-translator.leaf
+\input linguist-programmer.leaf