Import your project’s translation templates

Important

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Before anyone can help translate your project, you need to tell Launchpad which English strings appear in your software’s interface.

You do this by importing one or more GNU gettext .pot template files. If you’re unfamiliar with .pot files or GNU gettext in general, see the gettext manual.

You can import translation templates by Manually uploading .pot files using the web interface.

Name template

Since a template file does not carry any metadata, all information about it must be derived from its path.

Launchpad needs this metadata to either create a new template entry in Launchpad Translations or to match the file to an existing entry. The metadata consists of the translation domain and the template name. The latter is derived from the former which in turn is extracted from the path.

These are the ways to specify the translation domain, the first match will be used:

  1. In the file name itself: domain.pot or po/domain.pot, etc.

  2. If the file name is generic (one of messages.pot, template.pot or untitled.pot), in the containing directory: domain/messages.pot or po/domain/messages.pot

  3. Or in the module directory: domain/po/messages.pot (only po is recognized as an intermediate directory in the path).

Upload translation template imports

You can also upload your template – or an archive containing several template files – through Launchpad’s web interface.

Visit your project’s translations overview page and click the link for the trunk series.

Ensure a successful import

Whenever someone imports a file for your project’s translations, Launchpad will hold it in a queue. If it’s an update to existing file, Launchpad will review and automatically approve it.

If the file is new, you – as the project’s translations maintainer – will need to review it manually.

You can help ensure your files are imported by checking that:

  • there isn’t already a translation effort in Launchpad for that project

  • you have permission from the upstream project, if that’s not you

  • In the tarball, give each template its own directory so the system can see what directories you want them in.

There are also some common problems that can cause a template file import to fail:

  • Make sure each of the message IDs – i.e. the English strings – is unique.

  • Use real English strings – for example Save the file – rather than identifiers, such as save_msg_z339.

Launchpad will email you to let you know if your import is a success or a failure.

Manual review

The first time you import a template, or a translation whose language or template are not clear, you’ll need to review it manually. To do this, you need to be the maintainer or owner of the project and to follow the “Import queue” link on your project’s translations overview page.

When you’re reviewing your project’s translations import queue, you’re looking for a number of potential problems:

  • an update to an existing template that’s been renamed and so shows up as a new template: delete the misnamed template and re-upload with the correct name

  • a template with anything other than English strings: delete and upload a template with English strings

  • a template or translations file that you never want to have in your project, even if the same person uploads it again: select Blocked. Launchpad will remember that you don’t want it imported.

If a troublesome file is imported, you’ll have to re-try with a clean version of the file.

After that first import, Launchpad will automatically approve subsequent imports of that file.