************************************************************************ Translating the MySQL GUI Tools Author : Michael G. Zinner <mzinner@mysql.com> Revision by : Mike Lischke <mikel@mysql.

com> Created : 2005-11-04 Last edited : 2008-07-31 ************************************************************************ This text explains how to translate the MySQL GUI tools. To add a new language to one of the tools please follow this procedure. Before you start the translation, please note that we can no longer accept your translations to be included into the main line for our tools. So any translation you do is just for you. Once translated, the GUI tool will "speak" another language on all supported platforms (at the moment, Windows, Linux/Gnome, and Mac OS). The translation, however, should be done on Windows because part of the process is to make sure that text lengths do not exceed the maximum display width and get clipped. On Linux, some display elements have a tendency of automatically adapting their size to the text they contain; thus, things might be properly displayed on Linux but not on Windows. If you cannot use Windows, please find instructions further below. STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS FOR WINDOWS ------------------------------------1) Make sure you have a recent version of the GUI tool you're about to translate installed. 2) Create the proper subdirectories. To add the new translation you have to create a subdirectory in the installation directory of the GUI tool you're about to translate: [InstallDir]\locale\[lang] The name of the [lang] directory indicates the language and can be found in the translation_list.txt file that you can find in the locale subdirectory, or online: http://www.us.debian.org/international/l10n/po/ For some languages, you have to use the 5-digit code, for example to specify Simplified Chinese (zh_CN) or Traditional Chinese (zh_TW). For other languages, you have a choice; for German, for example, you may use either the 2-digit code de or the 5-digit code de_DE, de_AT, etc. If you want to translate a language that is not in that list, simply add the language to the file [InstallDir]\locale\languages_list.txt Under the [lang] directory you need to create a subdirectory named LC_MESSAGES: [InstallDir]\locale\[lang]\LC_MESSAGES\ Example: To translate MySQL Administrator into German, you would have this directory layout (assuming Administrator is installed in

the default location): C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Administrator 1.1\ locale\ de\ LC_MESSAGES 3) Get the .po files from our public repositories that you can access using a web browser. Each GUI tool has two associated .po files: a) mysql-gui-common-template.po This file is shared amoung all GUI tools. It can be obtained from http://svn.mysql.com/svnpublic/mysql-gui-common/trunk/po/ b) The .po file of the specific tool. For MySQL Administrator, this would be mysql-administrator-template.po, which can be obtained from http://svn.mysql.com/svnpublic/mysql-administrator/trunk/po/ For MySQL Query Browser, this would be mysql-query-browser-template.po, which can be obtained from http://svn.mysql.com/svnpublic/mysql-query-browser/trunk/po/ Download the files and place them in the LC_MESSAGES directory created in step 1. 4) Download the GNU gettext binaries and dependencies for Windows from http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/gettext.htm Make sure *not* to download the "complete package" which contains an installer for windows, but doesn't allow you to place the files where MakeMo.bat needs them (see below). Here are the download links: http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/downlinks/gettext-bin-zip.php http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/downlinks/gettext-dep-zip.php After downloading, extract the .zip files under [InstallDir]\locale\. Make sure you have the file [InstallDir]\locale\bin\msgcat.exe. 5) Install poEdit. It is best to use the 1.2.5 release which can be downloaded from http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/poedit/poedit-1.2.5-setup.exe 6) Doubleclick a .po file to open it. For example, open this file: C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Administrator 1.1\locale\de\LC_MESSAGES\mysql-gu i-common-template.po 6.1) From the menu, select Catalog > Settings... fill in "Project info", and save the file: - project name and version (e.g. MySQL Administrator 1.1.5), - team name (e.g. MA translation team), - mail address (e.g. stefan@mysql.com), - language (e.g. German), - country (e.g. Germany), - character set (utf-8), - source code character set (utf-8). Make sure to use UTF-8, not any other character set! Unless you want to change the Project info, this step has to be performed only once, right before you start the translation.

6.2) Now start the translation by selecting a word in the upper list and entering the translation in the lower area. To search for a specific word, click the upper list and start typing the word. For more information how to use the poEdit interface, see the documentation shipped with the product. !! Things to notice. ! The translated text needs to have about the same length as the original English text. Use abbreviations if necessary. ! The translation needs to be verified in the GUI. If the translation results in a messed up display it has to be corrected. See the next step for information about how to prepare translated files for the application. ! In the translation, preserve special characters that indicate a tab (\t) or a new line (\n). ! In the translation, preserve spaces, as in the following string: -h,--host=name Connect to host.\n This example contains two spaces preceding the string, and 8 spaces in the middle. It's command-line output, which is the reason why it uses space characters, rather than tabs. ! In the translation, preserve variables like these: %s: could not connect to MySQL:\n %s (%i)\n In that example, don't touch %s and %i. Here's a more complex example: %d row%s fetched in %.4fs (%.4fs) In that example, you should not touch %d, %s, and %.4fs. ! When you start a translation, poEdit will report "xx bad tokens" in the status bar. Don't worry, here's the explanation: poEdit checks whether C style placeholders ("%1.3f" and the like) match between the untranslated original and the translation. Initially, with empty translations, there are many mismatches, of course, but these get fewer and fewer as the translation proceeds. When you're done with the translation, no "bad tokens" should be left. 7) To make the translations available to the application you have to compile the .po files using this batch file: [InstallDir]\locale\MakeMo.bat That file takes one parameter: [lang] (see step 1) Open a command-line window, change into [InstallDir]\locale, and invoke the batch file with the appropriate language parameter. Example for the German translation: MakeMo.bat de The batch file creates a default.mo file in the [InstallDir]\locale\[lang]\LC_MESSAGES directory. Now the application can be (re)started, and the new language can be selected (Tools > Options > General Options).

Note that after switching the interface language the application has to be restarted once again for that change to take effect. This is a limitation we hope to remove some day. 8) Please send an email to gui-tools@lists.mysql.com once you have finished a translation and want to have it included in the standard distribution. INSTRUCTIONS FOR LINUX ---------------------1) Read the instructions for Windows (above). They contain many hints about the translation process. 2) Under KDE or similar window managers, you can use KBabel to translate the .po files. Read above (particular item #6) to see why we prefer translations to be done on Windows. 3) Create binary .mo files. You need to have gettext installed. See instructions given on this page: http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_mono/gettext.html#SEC119 4) Rename the created .mo file to match the application. For example, the .mo file for MySQL Administrator must be called: mysql-administrator.mo 5) To test it within the application, copy the .mo file to its proper location. Normally, this is a directory under /usr/share/locale or /usr/local/share/locale. - First, identify the language directory. For German, for example, this would be "de". For more information, refer to item #2 in the instructions for Windows. - Copy the .mo file to the "LC_MESSAGES" subdirectory of the language directory. - If the target language of your translation differs from the language setting of your operating system (for example, you're running an English Linux but want to test your German translation), you could either change the language settings in Preferences or Administration permanently. To change the language temporarily, change the language from the shell, by invoking: shell> export LANG=de_DE shell> export LC_ALL=de_DE This would change the language to German for any program invoked from that command-line session. You can then invoke the GUI tool of your choice by specifying the executable. The following would, for example, start MySQL Administrator: shell> mysql-administrator &