ejabberd is translated to many languages using standard gettext files (with extension .po). When the people have translated the strings in the .po files, those files are converted to ejabberd's internal .msg format.

Get the language file

When preparing a new ejabberd release, the language files are updated with the new or modified strings (using 'make translations'). The .po files are available in ejabberd Git repository.

Translate the Strings

Download the .po file of your language from Git, and open it with any gettext-compatible program like KBabel, Lokalizer or Poedit. You can translate the strings that miss a translation, update the fuzzy strings, or improve any translation that you noticed to be incorrect.

You can also edit the .po file with any text editor, but make sure to respect the syntax and the UTF-8 file encoding.

Submit your improvements

When you completed your changes in a .po file, you can submit it with the method that you prefer: ejabberd mailing list, the ejabberd chatroom, the ejabberd translation forum, or in the ejabberd bug tracker. Please compress your .po file (with zip, or gzip, ...), and indicate what name do you want to be credited (your real name or a nickname, whatever you prefer).

Translating ejabberd to a new language

If you plan to translate ejabberd to a completely new language, you can download the file ejabberd.pot from ejabberd Git, and translate the strings to your language. You can later submit your new file as explained before.

Getting help

If you don't understand some English string or want to know in what context it is used. Or if you have any other technical question or suggestion regarding ejabberd translations, you can comment it as explained before.

Links

Some links that propose interesting guidelines for translators of other projects (that are useful also in ejabberd translation):

• Debian: General notes for translators