Translation

How to contribute translations to FreeMind follows.

Step-by-step overview

Get a SourceForge user.
Choose the editing tool if getting started.
Get the latest English translation.
Get the latest translation for your language.
Find and complete what is missing.
Set mnemonics in the translations.
Post to Translations tracker.
Register yourself as FreeMind translator if you prefer.

Getting a SourceForge user

To get a SourceForge user, visit creation page, unless you already have a user. (You need a SourceForge user to post your translation to Translations tracker, as described below.)

Getting the latest translations

Look for a translation into your language present in the development branch. If such a translation is not present, take Resources_en.properties.

Choosing the editing tool

Translation files can be edited using variety of tools.

Popeye

Popeye ^{Screenshot | Download} can deal with several language property files at the same time, so you can contrast the original property file data with their translations. Also, the program can highlight all properties that do not have a translation set in one of the selected languages.

After a short test, I can recommend Popeye. No installation needed, works fine, looks good, and has a nice web.--Danielpolansky 03:26, 2 Jun 2007 (PDT)

Propedit

Propedit^Screenshot can directly edit property files written in Unicode reference characters, thereby saving the time and effort of converting into Unicode through native2ascii. Its plugin is integrated with Eclipse and JBuilder. Files can be opened in the IDE and saved in Unicode. See also Propedit project page.

Plain text editor

A plain text editor is the tool of choice if you are well acquainted with them and prefer them. If so, you already probably have your favorite tool. If not, these tools include Microsoft Notepad, Notepad++, Vim, Emacs and a vast variety of other tools.

Using plain text editor is more tricky in that the language translation files are using Java unicode notatiton, encoding a single non-latin character like \u4567, making the file less readable. A workaround is to convert the language file into UTF-8 encoding first, then edit it, and finally convert to Java notation again. The conversion is described in the following section. Once the text is in UTF-8 encoding, tools like Microsoft Notepad can be used, and the non-latin characters are shown as you would see them in a WYSIWYG editor. However, various plain text editors differ in their capability to show UTF-8 characters. Notepad on Windows XP is definitely able to do that.

Converting between Unicode notations

To convert a file in UTF-8 into \uXXXX Unicode escape notation, you may use native2ascii tool included with the Java SDK. Example of use (Resources_cs.properties.txt is before conversion):

cd C:\j2sdk1.4.2\bin>
native2ascii.exe -encoding UTF8 Resources_cs.properties.utf8.txt Resources_cs.properties

Ideally, your file's name will be Resources_xx.properties, where xx is the code of the language (e.g. en, de, dk etc.).

To convert \uXXXX Unicode encoded file back to UTF-8, use a command similar to the following.

cd C:\j2sdk1.4.2\bin>
native2ascii.exe -reverse -encoding UTF8 Resources_cs.properties Resources_cs.properties.utf8.txt

Translate with PO tools: Virtaal and prop2po

You can also use a traditional PO translation tool such as Virtaal if you convert the properties file to PO format.

To convert from properties to PO, you will need the prop2po command from the Translate Toolkit. Assuming your language code is xx, use the following command for the conversion:

prop2po Resources_en.properties Resources_xx.properties.po

Now open Resources_xx.properties.po in Virtaal. Set your target language in Virtaal: this ensures that various features like spell checking, translation memory and terminology will be set correctly.

Before you submit or test your translation, you will need to convert it back to Java properties format as follows:

po2prop -t Resources_en.properties Resources_xx.properties.po Resources_xx.properties

This will convert your PO file into a Java properties file using the English properties file as a template. All Java escaping of Unicode will happen automatically. Submit your properties file as usual.

Setting mnemonics

For menu items, you can set mnemonics by putting "&" character before the letter of the mnemonic in the title of the menu item. For instance, "&Edit" means that the title of the menu will read "Edit" and its mnemonic will be "e". Mnemonic is a keyboard shortcut accessible in various ways; in Windows, either by pressing Alt + mnemonic, or by pressing F10, followed by the mnemonic. Mnemonics are there not only for the leading menus, but also for submenus and menu items.

Posting translations

Send your translation to Translations tracker. To be able to do it, you need a SourceForge user, which can be created at Account Registration page at SourceForge.

Registering yourself as FreeMind translator

If you are seriously planning to become a FreeMind translator, and want to receive Call for translations emails from us, please register yourself as translator by subscribing to freemind-translator mailing list. To subscribe, follow this link, and fill in the form.

When to translate

We send a call for translation email after publishing the first release candidate of FreeMind, as at that point we can make sure that only few or possibly none new texts to translate will be added.

A translator can still start creating and posting translations at any point of time, so he or she can distribute the workload in time.

Using new translation in FreeMind

Write or download the Resources_xx.properties file.
Unpack the freemind.jar file with 7-Zip or similar into a temp folder.
Replace or add the Resources_xx.properties with the new one.
Repack the freemind.jar with the modified content of the temp folder.

Menu label checklist

Menu Label Checklist	Poor	Good
In English, use capitalized labels	Move to root	Move to Root
Menu items leading to a dialog should end with ... .	Open Close ...	Open... Close
Do not repeat the verb already used in the menu heading	Export > Export to PNG Insert > Insert Hyperlink	Export > As PNG Insert > Hyperlink

State of translation

Currently, we have the following languages translated. The table below is out of date, mapping roughly the state at 0.8.1. It would be very helpful if the translators would update it. Up-to-date information of the state of translation can in any case be found in GIT and in Translations tracker.

Already Translated Languages
Language	Language	Code	GIT	Translator	Last version patch	Last up-to-date version	Capitalized titles	Translated help map
Arabic		ar	GIT	nasser_almesad
Basque	Euskara	eu	GIT	azkentximinoa		0.9.0	No	No
Bulgarian		bg	GIT	vel_		0.9.0	No	No
Catalan		ca	GIT	albertalcaine
Croatian		hr	GIT
Czech	Česky	cs	GIT	allitaice			No
Chinese, Traditional		zh_TW	GIT	willyann		0.8.1?
Chinese, Simplified		zh_CN	GIT	willyann
Danish	Dansk	da	GIT			0.8.1?
Dutch	Nederlands	nl	GIT	koenr	10rc1	0.9	No	No
English	English	en	GIT	N/A		0.8.1?	Yes	Yes
Estonian	Eesti	et	GIT	elaugasson	0.9.0.beta18 0.9.0 RC1	0.8.1?	Yes	Yes
French	Francais	fr	GIT	sgamel, ewl, srombauts, Daniel Berthereau		0.8.1?		Yes
Galician		gl	GIT
German	Deutsch	de	GIT	christianfoltin		0.8.1?		Yes
Greek	Ελληνικά	el	GIT	sarikoudis, Yannis Kaskamanidis		0.9.0 RC4
Hungarian		hu	GIT	documan
Indonesian		id	GIT	permataharahap
Italian	Italiano	it	GIT	bobalex, valtermura		0.8.1?
Japanese	Nihongo	ja	GIT	drikin, tomophy		0.8.1? / 0.9.0
Korean	Hangeul	ko	GIT	goliathz, lyg73		0.8.1?
Lithuanian		lt	GIT	oxiris
Norwegian Bokmål		nb	GIT	larslem
Norwegian Nynorsk		nn	GIT	yjlandro
Polish	Polski	pl	GIT	Rafal Kraik, kfoltman			No
Portuguese	Português	pt_PT	GIT	Luis Ferreira, alvalente
Brazilian Portuguese	Português brasileiro	pt_BR	GIT	nonducor, echofloripa
Romanian	Română	ro	GIT	nicoleta_negut
Russian	Pусский	ru	GIT	dpolivaev, sergeykotkin		1.0.0 Beta1		Yes
Slovak	Slovenský	sk	GIT	viliambur
Slovenian		sl	GIT	filmsi		0.8.1?		No?
Spanish	Espanol	es	GIT	hgayosso, sergist		0.8.1?	Yes	Yes
Swedish	Svenska	se	GIT	andber, gustavsson		0.9.0	No?
Turkish	Türkçe	tr	GIT	jnmbk				Yes
Ukrainian		uk_UA	GIT	dubyk
Vietnamese		vi	GIT	dinhtrung

Columns:

Last version patch: enter a link to the latest existing patch with the FreeMind version it concerns as text.
Last up-to-date version: enter the newest released version of FreeMind with up-to-date translation; consider beta versions as well.
Capitalized titles: Whether the titles use title case such as "Mind Mapping" rather than "Mind mapping", as is the case with English.

The ISO 639-1 language codes can be found in Wiktionary.

Translating the documentation

The freemind.mm file, which is documentation in mindmap format, is a simple XML file. It can be found in your FreeMind installation (eg in Microsoft Windows XP, you'll find it in C:\Program Files\FreeMind\doc). Open the file in a Unicode enabled text editor, and then simply translate everything in the TEXT attribute. For example:

 <node COLOR="#000000" CREATED="1124560950701" MODIFIED="1124560950701"
 TEXT="You can install the applet at your website so that other users can
 browse your mind maps.">

Using Swordfish

If you want to use translation memory or a CAT tool, you can now use Swordfish to translate MM files. Swordfish is not free software.

First, create a file named config_map.xml and put the following code in it:

 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
 <!DOCTYPE ini-file PUBLIC "-//Maxprograms//Converters 2.0.0//EN" "configuration.dtd" >
 <ini-file><tag attributes="TEXT" hard-break="segment" keep-format="yes">node</tag></ini-file>

Then copy this file into the /ini folder of your Swordfish installation (there may be a file by that name already; if so, rename it temporarily).

Run Swordfish and go File -> Convert file to XLIFF format. Remember to select the file type as "XML (Generic)" and the encoding as "UTF8". If you select "Embed skeleton", you may be able to recreate the MM file with a third-party XLIFF editor.

Feedback

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