Translating Audacity
Translating Audacity is the best way to get involved right in Audacity's UI without having to code.
Audacity is translated into multiple languages by volunteers across the world. If you want to contribute to translation please join the audacity-translation mailing list and read the instructions below.
Using Transifex to translate Audacity
Before joining the Audacity project in Transifex please subscribe to the audacity-translation mailing list and check the status of the translation you would like to contribute to with others members of the list.
You can find and join the Audacity project at https://explore.transifex.com/klyok/audacity/
Click the JOIN THIS PROJECT button on the right side.
Select the language you would like to contribute to from the dropdown.
Click Join Project (if the language is Available to join) or Request Language if the language you want to contribute to is not available yet.
Once you have been approved as a translator you will receive a notification by email. After that you will see the project in your Dashboard and you can start to contribute.
Click Translate at the top right side
Select Audacity from the Resource Overview panel to start editing
Select the string to translate and type the corresponding translation
Click Save Translation and select the next string to translate.
Translate Audacity using a standalone application
Audacity uses GitHub and you can explore the available translations at https://github.com/audacity/audacity/tree/master/locale
Each language translation is stored in a PO file. For example it.po is the Italian translation and ko.po is the Korean translation.
To download a PO file from GitHub click on the link for the .po file for your language. On the page you come to, right-click the Raw button and then select then Save target or Save link as. Select the location to place the PO file.
Use the wxWidgets languageinfo.cpp file as a reference to the list of translated languages.
These are some programs you can use to edit PO files:
The following instructions use poEdit 3.1.1 to illustrate the process of translation
If there is no translation PO file for your language create a new one using the following steps:
Download the audacity.pot file from Audacity GitHub
Open poEdit and select Create new... (Create new translation from POT Template)
Select the audacity.pot file and click on Open
poEdit will ask you about the Translation Language. Select the language from the dropdown and click OK.
Select Translation > Properties... and verify that the Character option is set to UTF-8 otherwise poEdit will not save any translations with non-English characters.
Translate each one of the entries using the Translation textbox
Select File > Save to save as a PO file. Select a destination folder and type a name for the file. Click on Save. poEdit will save a .po file plus a .mo file for use in Audacity.
Update an existing translation of Audacity
The following instructions use poEdit 3.1.1 to illustrate the process of translation
If you want to update an existing translation
Download the PO file for your language, for example it.po or open a previously translated PO file from your computer.
Download the audacity.pot file from Audacity GitHub
Open poEdit and select Browse files (Open and edit translation files)
Select the existing PO file for your language and click on Open
Select Translation > Update from POT file... and look for the audacity.pot file you downloaded previously. This will update your PO file with the latest strings from the downloaded POT file.
Translate each one of the entries using the Translation textbox
Select File > Save to save as a PO file. Select a destination folder and type a name for the file. Click on Save. poEdit will save a .po file plus a .mo file for use in Audacity.
Submitting a translation
To submit a translation, please send the completed .po file to the audacity-translation mailing list. A member of Audacity Team will commit the file and send a message to the list confirming this.
Test a translation in Audacity
You can get an up-to-date alpha version of Audacity, NOT suitable for production use, but good for checking translations on, in the nightly version: https://audacityteam.org/nightly. From there, you’ll find there are choices of builds for different platforms. Download the right one for your platform.
On Windows, open the “Languages” directory inside the unzipped Audacity folder, then open the directory with the same name as your .po file. On Mac OS X, right-click or control-click over Audacity.app > Show Package Contents then open the relevant LPROJ directory inside the “Resources” directory. On GNU/Linux, open the relevant “locale” directory in usr/share/ or usr/local/share.
If creating a new translation, create a new directory for your language using the correct language code from the wxWidgets languageinfo.cpp file. For example, the code for Punjabi is “pa”, so on Windows, create “Audacity\Languages\pa”.
Rename the saved .mo file to “Audacity.mo”, and paste it into the directory you opened or created.
Open Audacity and in Preferences > Interface, choose your language and click OK. You should now see your translations.
Further information
Please read Translating Audacity for more tips on translating the Audacity source code, and to learn how the Audacity software is translated.
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