Getting Started¶
Basic Concepts in Transifex¶
In Transifex, everything revolves around a Translation Project. This usually represents a branded project or product, such as a specific text editor or a web browser. For example, MeeGo’s Installer, which is the software the user sees when trying to install the MeeGo Operating System, would be registered as an independent project on Transifex.
Projects are created and managed by people who Transifex refers to as project maintainers. They can configure all aspects of a project and are ultimately responsible for it.
Translators who contribute to a project are organized in Language Teams. Each project has its own set of Translation Teams, one per language. This ensures people work on the files they are interested in. Teams can also have coordinators, who are privileged members who can help in team management tasks, such as approving new members and reviewing contributions to that language.
Now, let’s get to the chorus.
Things inside a Project¶
A project may have many translatable parts, which, in Transifex, we call Resources. If you are familiar with PO files and gettext, a resource is a source POT file and all its respective PO files. For example, a software project on Transifex may create separate resources for its User Interface, Documentation, command-line tool, etc.
A resource is basically a set of translatable entities and their translations. Each resource has a Source Language, which is the language in which the entity was originally written (e.g. in the source code). When translating online, this is the language from which the translators will translate.
A resource can be created by uploading a translation file, such as a POT file (gettext) or TS file (Qt), and selecting its language. Transifex opens the uploaded file and searches for translatable strings. For each string it finds, it creates a translatable entity in the source language (e.g. English).
We now have a resource and a set of translatable strings (e.g. in English), and can proceed to the actual translation phase.
Translating¶
Translators, who are members of a language team in the project, can now create a new translation of the resource, typically, using English as the source language. They can choose to translate online by using the web-based Transifex translation editor (Lotte), or offline, by downloading a file and translating it using their own desktop tools.
The translator can now translate the resource to a new language. By choosing to translate online, the web editor opens up. The English strings are shown on the left, on the right are have text boxes to select/enter translations. Each translated string is automatically saved in Transifex, so translators never lose their work.
Translators can also choose to download a file for translation. The type of the file depends on the source/template file the maintainer used to originally create the resource. For example, if the resource was created using a POT file, the downloaded translation file in French will be fr.po.
Depending on the file type, translators can use their favorite desktop tools to translate it. When they’re ready, they can upload the file to Transifex in their language and Transifex will import the translations, just like if they used the online translation editor.
The project maintainer now has imported his source translation files in Transifex and got a bunch of translations. Cool. Let’s now see how this is combined with the content itself and its publication.
Using Translations¶
Depending on the project type, Transifex offers the maintainer a number of ways to get the translations back.
The most common one is to export them as translation files. This is done the same way a translator downloaded the file, as described above.
Let’s take a moment and explain how this works under the hood. Remember the source file (e.g. POT) we uploaded when we created the resource originally? Transifex actually stored this template/source file in its database. To download the translations in a file (e.g. fr.po for French), Transifex takes the template file, replaces all English strings with the French translations, and provides this new file for download.
Since this process can be repeated often, we’ve created a handy command-line tool called transifex-client, which is targeted mainly towards software developers, localization coordinators and language leaders. They can use the client to ‘pull’ translations from Transifex right before a release, every week or even every half an hour if they so choose.
But there’s more. Transifex supports fetching translations directly from the database using an Application Programmable Interface (API), without the need to mess around with translation files. This way, software developers can integrate their tools directly with Transifex. So, for example, an application could even fetch fresh translations the moment the user launches it.
Next Section: Managing your Project »