Translation Guide

Discussion and questions regarding to the translation of FreeCommander XE
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Dreamer
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Joined: 19.08.2007, 23:40

Translation Guide

#1 Post by Dreamer » 06.11.2011, 22:20

How can you produce a new language for FreeCommander:

Before you start with translation, make sure that someone else is not already working on the same translation. To do that, please visit this site, and contact the author via e-mail.

All available language files are in the installation file and have the extension LNG. If you want to produce a new language file, you should first copy an existing file and rename it, e.g. copy english.lng as french.lng. After the texts in the new file have been translated, the new language can be published for FreeCommander. Simply copy the LNG file into the LNG subfolder. Afterwards you can select the new language in Tools -> Settings. If you want to share your work with other people, then send us the file.

The LNG file must be saved with UTF-8 encoding!

Hints:

Very important is to check translation for mistakes, typos and truncated labels in the program. To do it easier, you can add special characters as prefix, e.g. "**" - then it's easier to find the option in the program, once it's checked, just use Replace option in your text editor (usually Ctrl+H or Ctrl+F) and remove all prefixes at once. Using special characters as prefix is useful also if you can't find the text in the program, or if you're not sure if the text will be displayed correctly, fully.

You can define keyboard shortcuts to the new actions - "Reload language" and "Switch language" - for easier switching between current and English language.

Sometimes the English text strings are changed due to many different reasons, to keep your language file updated, please watch this topic which includes all the changes.

Useful programs:

Ini Translation Utility
Very useful program to translate and maintain translated .ini compliant language files.

Important: Ini Translation Utility (ITU) saves the file with Unicode 16 encoding. So if you have saved the file with ITU, you should open the file with a text editor and save it with UTF-8 encoding.

PSPad
Universal freeware text editor with spell checker for few languages.

Useful web sites:

Microsoft Language Portal
Simple translator for many languages, very useful site.

Wikipedia
Free encyclopedia. To help with translation search for something in English, then change the language in the left column. Even if something is in English only, description may help though.

If you know another useful hint, program, or web site - which is somehow special, please let us know, write a link and short description and we'll add it to the list.

Thank you!

Marek / Dreamer

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