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Guide for Translators

This guide is written to provide instructions from scratch for contributing to the translation of the Jamulus application to other languages.

The code for Jamulus is open source, and is managed and made available via the Github site.

For completeness, this document describes the use both of GitHub (using git) and of Qt Linguist.

Introduction

The translator must be able to do the following steps, which will each be explained further down:

  • Create their own linked copy ("repository" or "repo") of Jamulus in GitHub. This is called Forking.
  • Copy ("clone") their own repository to their computer, using either:
  • Update their own local repo from the upstream master branch.
  • Create a local branch to contain the update.
  • Use the Qt Linguist tool to edit the appropriate translation (.ts) file.
  • Commit the updated .ts file to the branch their own local git repo.
  • Push the branch from their local repo to their own repo on Github.
  • Raise a Pull Request (PR) for the merging of the updated file into the upstream repo by the developers.

This guide contains two main parts:

  1. Instructions for getting set up, which only needs to be done once.

  2. The workflow for updating and contributing translations as a part of the preparation for a release of Jamulus.

1. Setting up

Visit github.com

First of all, visit the Github website

If you don't yet have a Github account, click on Sign up to go to the Create Your Account page. Enter:

  • Your chosen username. This is a simple word containing letters and, optionally, numbers, and will identify you in the Github world. It is not an email address. This name is represented in the examples below as yourusername.
  • Your email address. This will be used by Github to send you notifications by email, and to identify commits made by you.
  • Your chosen password. Do not use the same password as for any other website.
  • Solve the puzzle to prove you are human and click Create account.

If you do have a Github account, and are not yet logged in, click on Sign in, and enter your username and password, then Sign in.

Go to the Jamulus repository.

Create your own copy ("fork") of the Jamulus repository by clicking the Fork button at the top right of the page.

If your Github account is also part of an organisation, Github will ask you where to create the fork. Choose your personal Github account.

It will then display the message "Forking jamulussoftware/jamulus", and when finished will display the home page of your own Jamulus repo (yourusername/jamulus).

Command line git tools

Linux and Mac machines come with command-line Git tools ready-installed or easily available.

  • On Mac, the git command is available in /usr/bin/git, as part of the Xcode package, or can be installed separately (see below).
  • On Linux, it may be necessary to install the git package using one of these commands:
    • On RedHat or CentOS, yum install git or dnf install git
    • On Debian or Ubuntu: apt install git
  • On Windows, Git can be obtained from Git for Windows

More information about installing Git on various systems can be found here

Make a local copy of your Jamulus repo by using git clone:

  • At the shell command-line, navigate to the directory that will be the parent of your jamulus development directory.
  • Give one of the following commands:
    • For ssh access: git clone git@github.com:yourusername/jamulus.git
    • For https access: git clone https://github.com/yourusername/jamulus.git

This will create a jamulus directory. Change to that directory.

  • Add the upstream repository: git remote add upstream https://github.com/jamulussoftware/jamulus.git
  • Check the remotes using git remote -v. The output should look like this: 
    origin  git@github.com:yourusername/jamulus.git (fetch)
origin  git@github.com:yourusername/jamulus.git (push)
upstream        https://github.com/jamulussoftware/jamulus.git (fetch)
upstream        https://github.com/jamulussoftware/jamulus.git (push)
    or this: 
    origin  https://github.com/yourusername/jamulus.git (fetch)
origin  https://github.com/yourusername/jamulus.git (push)
upstream        https://github.com/jamulussoftware/jamulus.git (fetch)
upstream        https://github.com/jamulussoftware/jamulus.git (push)

Github Desktop

Github Desktop is available for macOS 10.10 or later, and Windows 7 64-bit or later. It is not available for 32-bit Windows.

To install Github Desktop, visit the download page and follow the link for the appropriate Operating System.

When downloading for Mac, the instructions suggest opening GitHubDesktop.zip, but in fact, what was downloaded was GitHubDesktop.app. This should just be moved from Downloads to Applications.

Run Github Desktop, and do the following steps:

  • On the Welcome Screen, click on Sign in to github.com
  • Sign in by following the instructions. These may vary depending on whether you have logged into Github via a web browser already. If necessary, click on Authorize Desktop.
  • Confirm access by entering your Github password.
  • for Mac, if the browser requests to open "Github Desktop.app", click Allow.
  • In Configure Git, enter your name and email address. These will be used to identify commits you make to Git. Click Continue.
  • Agree or decline to submit periodic usage stats, and click Finish.
  • Either:
    • Select Clone a Repository from the Internet and enter yourusername/jamulus, or
    • Select your own fork of Jamulus from the list (yourusername/jamulus) and click the Clone button.
  • Select the Local Path where the project should be stored, and click Clone.
  • It will display the page Cloning jamulus with progress indication.
  • On completion of cloning, it will ask "How are you planning to use this fork?". Answer "To contribute to the parent project".

Qt Linguist

Qt Linguist is a part of the Qt development suite, and may either be installed via your Operating System's packaging manager, or by downloading from the Qt Open Source download page. In the latter case you will need to create an account on the Qt website.

Under Linux

  • On RedHat or CentOS: yum install qt5-linguist or dnf install qt5-linguist
  • On Debian or Ubuntu: apt install qttools5-dev-tools

Instructions for use are in the Qt Linguist Manual

2. Doing a translation

Get the most up-to-date files and set up a new branch

With git command line tools

The first step is to get the local repo up to date with the upstream master:

cd projectdir/jamulus
git fetch upstream

This fetches information about the current state of the upstream repo. It is now necessary to apply any upstream changes to the local repo. As the user will not be updating the master branch themselves, git rebase can be used to fast-forward to the current state:

git checkout master
git rebase upstream/master
git push

Finally, create a new branch for the changes that will be done (do not just do them on master). The actual name of the branch is not critical, since the branch will be deleted after being merged, but it's worth choosing a meaningful name:

git checkout -b translate-r3_7_0-german

(The branch name is chosen by the user; the above name translate-r3_7_0-german is an example for the German translation of V3.7.0)

The branch will be used later as the source of a Pull Request.

With Github Desktop

Select the current repository as jamulus, and the current branch as master.

Click on "Fetch origin" to get fully up to date with upstream.

Drop down the "Current Branch" menu and click on the New Branch button. Give the branch a meaningful name such as translate-r3_7_0-german and click Create Branch.

Do not click on Publish branch just yet.

Work on the translation file

Open Qt Linguist, and navigate to the directory src/res/translation within your project directory.

In this directory are translation source files for each language, each with a .ts suffix. Don't worry about the .qm files, as they are compiled when building the release code.

Open the .ts file for the language being worked on.

Each context in the left-hand column represents a source file or graphical form containing translatable words and phrases ("strings"). The icon beside each shows a green tick if there is nothing further to be done, a yellow tick if a translation needs attention, and a question mark if there are untranslated strings.

After clicking on a Context, the list of strings needing translation is shown, with a green tick beside the ones that have been done. The right-hand pane will show either the source code or the form, so that the usage can be checked, in case this aids the translation.

Strings with a grey tick can be ignored. They are old strings that used to be used but are no longer. They are retained for reference in case they should be used again in the future.

Again, strings with a question mark require translation.

After some or all of the required strings have been translated, the file can be saved.

Submit the updated translation as a Pull Request (PR)

Once all translations have been done, the branch containing the changes must be commited to your own repo, pushed to Github (origin) and then a Pull Request raised to the upstream repo.

With git command line tools

First, check the current branch with git status, to make sure it is correct, and then do a commit, with a commit message describing the change, for example:

git commit -am 'Update German translations for v3.7.0'

Then do a git push.

It will probably tell you to set the upstream repository for tracking, and conveniently gives the command for copying and pasting:

git push --set-upstream origin translate-r3_7_0-german

Finally, go to the Github website where it will most likely offer a banner saying there is a recent commit and offering to raise a Pull Request. Do so.

With Github Desktop

Select the current repository as jamulus, and the branch that was created above, such as translate-r3_7_0-german.

The changed file(s) should be listed in the left-hand column as src/res/translation/translation_xx_YY.ts. When the file is selected, the differences will be displayed in the main panel.

Add a simple commit message in the first box below the file list, (e.g. change "Update filename" to something like "Update German translations for v3.7.0"), and add any extra description in the Description box (optional, probably not required).

Commit the changes to the local git repo by clicking on Commit to .

Click on Publish branch or Push origin. This will push the branch to your own repo on Github. (It will say Publish branch for a new branch, or Push origin if the branch has already been published).

There will now be a section offering Create Pull Request. Click on that to create the PR to the upstream repository.

That's all

Thank you for contributing!