Money Manager Ex
Development: Translation
MMEX uses .po files to store language strings for the program. The default .po file is in English. A translation of the .po file will be done by simply writing the translated strings in your language and then saving the file with a unique name. This file will be loaded when the user selects your language.
As MMEX is developed and more features are added, new strings might be added to the default.po file. This might cause the translated .po files to be out of date. But do not worry about this because for every translation it cannot find in the language specific .po file the program will automatically fall back to the English string. This will continue to be the case till the .po file is updated.
Everyone likes to be acknowledged for their efforts. So once you become a translator for a particular language, you will be listed in the credits of the program in the "About" dialog.
Every once in a while, you might need to update the translated .po file with new strings that may have been added in MMEX since then.
Procedure
1) Installing PoEdit: Download poEdit from PoEdit (if running Windows, just get the simple installer version) and install it. Download Link (http://www.poedit.net/download.php)
2) Getting the original (english-mmex.po) file: Install the latest version of MMEX and in the install directory under languages, the file english-mmex.po is located.
3) Opening the file: Open poEdit (Start->Programs->poEdit->poEdit). If this is the first time you've run it, it will ask for your name and email address, to put them in the translation file. Then go to File->Open and open up the english-mmex file. Don't be worried by the number of strings to translate! You do not have to translate every line before sending us what you have done – MMEX will simply default to English for anything yet to be translated.
4) Basic translation: Select a line to translate in the top frame, and enter the translation in the bottom. poEdit keeps track of which lines have not yet been translated, and which are "fuzzy" translations (automated translations that may be wrong and should be checked). poEdit will also tell you if a sentence has a plural (ie. needs a different translation depending on the number of things being printed out). This should be straightforward. File->Save or the Save button will save your translations to the same file.
5) % placeholders: The % placeholders are programming constructs used to denote something will be filled in at runtime. Simply leave them as is in the translated string. For example, a sentence to give the colour of a cat and its size, in Spanish:
"The cat is %s and %d centimetres long."
"El gato tiene %s y %d centímetros de largo."
6) & and formatting: Please preserve any '&' characters or spaces in the strings as always.
8) Testing your translation: In your MMEX (applies to 0.5.1.0 and above) installation, simply delete the english-mmex.po/mo files, rename your translated files to english-mmex.po/mo files and make sure you have selected the language as English. Now your translated strings should appear!
7) Email it to zealsupport mailing list (you are on there aren't you) with as much or as little as you have done, and I will get it up and running as soon as possible. :-)
8) So your .PO language file has been added to the MMEX install. Good. MMEX is now localized for your language.
However, as new versions come out, new strings are added to MMEX and you'll need to update your .PO file accordingly.
Every new release, the .po files in the install will be updated with new strings. You need to download the latest release and open the .po file and update it with new translations for the strings and send it back to me.