Translation¶

Backend¶

Backend translation uses the standard Django translation mechanisms (https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.7/topics/i18n/).

Then we use Transifex to make it easy for client staff to provide translations of the text in the Django project.

Frontend¶

Frontend translation uses i18next-client. The source messages are in frontend/locales/en/translation.json.

Our fab helper commands convert those to *.po files and push them to Transifex for translation, then convert the translated .po files to json for i18next-client to use.

Adding features and fixing bugs¶

While the .po files can be regenerated easily by running fab makemessages again for English or fab pullmessages for the translated languages, we still store them in Git to make it easier to keep an eye on changes, and maybe revert if we have to. (That way we are less likely to accidentally make a mistake and delete huge swaths of messages and not even notice it.)

We also store the .mo files because those are what Django gets the translated messages from at runtime.

Updating messages on Transifex¶

Anytime there have been changes to the messages in the code or templates that have been merged to develop, someone should update the messages on Transifex as follows:

Make sure you have the latest code from develop:
```
git checkout develop
git pull
```
regenerate the English (only) .po files:
```
fab makemessages
```
Run “git diff” and make sure the changes look reasonable.
If so, commit the updated .po file to develop and push it upstream:
```
git commit -m "Updated messages" locale/en/LC_MESSAGES/*.po
git push
```
(Commiting the .po files isn’t strictly necessary since we can recreate it, but we can tell what’s the latest version we pushed to Transifex by committing each version when we push it.)
push the updated source file to Transifex (http://support.transifex.com/customer/portal/articles/996211-pushing-new-translations):
```
fab pushmessages
```

Updating translations from Transifex¶

Anytime translations on Transifex have been updated, someone should update our translation files on the develop branch as follows:

Make sure you have the latest code from develop:
```
git checkout develop
git pull
```
pull the updated .po files from Transifex (http://support.transifex.com/customer/portal/articles/996157-getting-translations):
```
fab pullmessages
```
Use git diff to see if any translations have actually changed. If not, you can stop here.
Also look at the diffs to see if the changes look reasonable. E.g. if a whole lot of translations have vanished, figure out why before proceeding.
Compile the messages to .mo files:
```
fab compilemessages
```
If you get any errors due to badly formatted translations, open issues on Transifex and work with the translators to get them fixed, then start this process over.
Run your test suite one more time:
```
python manage.py test
```

Commit and push the changes to github:

git commit -m "Updated translations" locale/*/LC_MESSAGES/*.po locale/*/LC_MESSAGES/*.mo
git push