1.8. How to Translate Streamline

Streamline has a translation tool called Translator. It is specially designed for adding new languages and creating translations for Streamline's user interface (UI). Translator allows you to:

create completely new translation based on chosen language;

create a variation of existing translation;

test your translations; and

send your translation to developers.

Creating a New Translation

To add a new translation in Streamline:

1. Run Translator. To do this, go to the menu Help > Language > Translation tool (see figure below).

2. Enter a name for the new language into the Language name field.

3. Choose the language you want to translate from in the Based on drop-down list.

4. Select the Complete translation option (see figure below).

5. Click OK.

As you click OK, Translator shows its main window (see figure below).

This window contains a table having three columns. Description of the columns is the following.

String ID column depicts a tree where each category level corresponds to specific part of Streamline UI and tree leaves indicate the IDs for strings to translate.

Original (from) column shows the original string.

Translated (to) column shows the translation for the original. At a category level, this column shows how many strings were translated from the total number in this category. Untranslated strings or categories are colored red in this column. As you translate all strings in a category, Translator marks this category in green in this column.

To translate a string:

1. Dig the tree down to the string (or find the string) you want to translate.

2. Double click on the line containing the string. Translator opens the Edit string dialog.

3. Enter your translation into the Translation field (see figure below).

The Previous and Next buttons of the dialog allows moving to the previous and next string in the tree.

Identifier chain section on the left of the dialog allows you to find out what the current string is intended for. For example, identifiers Main and Ui mean that the string is somewhere in the user interface of the main form. Both developers and automatic tools leave some comments. They are displayed in the Identifier chain (see figure above).

Auto-check section displays discrepancies between the original and the translation.

4. Click OK.

After you click OK, the result will appear in the main window (see figure below).

There are several special symbols in the original language that should be kept in your translation.

Symbols	Description
Line break is required.
Space symbol is required at the end of the line.
{1}, {2}…	Substitution marks. The number in braces indicates the serial number of the substitution. Substation mark is a sub-string in the original sentence. For example, in “Save {1}?”, {1} is substituted by a project file name. All substitution marks work regardless of order and quantity. For example, “The capital of {2} is {1}, {1}.”. If {1} = “London” and {2} = “the UK”, then the result will be “The capital of the UK is London, London.”.
{1|0=Monday|1=Tuesday}	Some enumeration.
{1|q=file:s} {1|q=wom:an,en} {1|q=woman, women}	Plural form, short version. In the short version, Translator automatically inserts the number and space before the translation. For example, “1 woman”, “2 women”.
{1|Q=? file,? files}	Plural form, long version. In this case, you can set the format of the string. Question mark “?” will be substituted by the number. For example, {1|Q=? file,? files} results in “1 file” and “2 files”.
You can freely replace q with Q, and vice-versa. For example: {1|q=file:s} selected. {1|Q=? file was,? files were} selected. There {1|Q=was ? file,were ? files}.
To shorten a string, you can move constant part of phrase out of Q directive. You can achieve exactly the same effect with: There w{1|Q=as ? file,ere ? files}.
To shorten even more, you can use several substitution marks. {1|q=file:s} w{1|Q=as,ere} selected.

After you finish your translation, click the Save button in the Translator toolbar.

Creating a Variation of Existing Translation

Translator allows you to create a variation of an existing translation. This comes in handy when you need to dispute spelling, change the terminology according to your field of work, etc..

To create a variation of an existing translation:

1. Run Translator. To do this, go to the menu Help > Language > Translation tool. After that, the New translation window shows up (see figure below).

2. Enter a name for your variation into the Language name field.

3. Choose the source translation in the Based on drop-down list.

4. Select the Localization patch option.

5. Click OK.

After that, Translator shows its window (see figure below).

To find a specific term or a phrase in the language source, use Translator search. To do this, go to the menu Edit > Find…. The Find dialog shows up then (see figure below).

In the dialog:

Enter the phrase to find into the Search for field.

Set the scope to search in by checking the necessary table columns in the Subject group.

Choose the location where to search in the Location group.

Configure search options in the Options group.

Click OK.

To find the next occurrence, press F3 button or use the menu command Edit > Find next.

To edit a string:

1. Double click on the line containing the string. The Edit string dialog appears.

2. Enter you variant into the Translation field (see figure below).

3. Click OK.

The result of the edit will appear in the main window (see figure below).

Translator counts the number of overrides you have made and shows it in the Translated (to) column at a category level in green (see figure above).

Testing Your Translation

To test a translation, click the Test button in the Translator toolbar (see figure below).

As you click the button, Translator runs Streamline with your language active (see figure below).

All the strings that haven’t been yet translated are enclosed in special symbols (triangles) (see figure above).

Sending Your Translation to Developers

If you want your translation to be included in the distributed installation package of Streamline, you can send us your translation. To do this:

1. Click the Send to developers button in the Translator toolbar (see figure below).

2. Enter your name into the Your name field.

3. Enter your email into the Your email field.

4. Type you message in the Comments field (see figure below).

5. Click OK.

If everything is okay, Translator will notify you about that (see figure below).

Differences between Complete Translation and Localization Patch

The differences between the Complete translation and Localization patch options are shown in the table below.

Complete translation	Localization patch
Translation into another language.	A variation of existing translation: disputing spelling, changing terminology according to your field of work, etc.
Translator tracks the progress of your work. Initially, all the translation project is colored red. Categories turn green as you finish them.	Translator only marks the categories you have touched. The rest are grey.
All the strings that haven’t been yet translated are marked with special symbols in Streamline.	No marks in Streamline.
If a new version of program arrives, Translator highlights everything that was changed or added.	If a new version of the program arrives, Translator only highlights the strings that were changed both by you and by developers.
Translator creates a default locale.xml. You need to edit it according to language specifics.	Translator takes locale.xml from the source language (version 4.7.10+).

Next: Using Streamline on a Virtual Machine

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