
Start a new translation for an existing plugin
==============================================

This example explains, how to make a new translation for the existing plugin
'myplugin'. The language, we want to translate into is French 'fra'.



Updating the template
---------------------

For the most plugins there is already a template file existing. Normally this
and all the .po-files are stored in the subdirectory 'i18n'. Go into the
directory of the plugin and use xgettext like this:

::

    xgettext --language=python --keyword=N_ `find . -name '*.py'` -o i18n/messages.pot

Starting your translation file:
-------------------------------

Now go into i18n and do this to start a new translation file for
french (fra):

::

    msginit --input messages.pot --locale fra

Now edit the fra.po file that was created. Don't forget to edit the
charset (normally change it to UTF-8)


Then you can use nice tools such as `gtranslator`_ to edit the updated
po file.

.. _gtranslator: http://gtranslator.sourceforge.net/


Looking up the 3-Letter language code:
--------------------------------------

If you don't know, what your languages 3-letter code is, you can simply look
up on the pages of SIL International:
http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/codes.asp

