Localization of OpenOffice.org 2.0 / Star Office 8

From version 2.0 of OpenOffice.org, Sun Microsystems will also release a Dutch version of Star Office. This will be Star Office 8. This means that Sun will hire a translation company to localize the GUI and the online help. In order to utilize the capacities of the Dutch OpenOffice.org community, the agreement is made that we will help with the localization. Since a lot of translation work has already been done for OpenOffice.org 1.x.x we will try to use that existing translation as much as possible.

In order to organize things well there have to be made some agreements on how we will work. At this moment there are several discussions about this on the localization mailinglist.
This page will be a summary of what is discussed and decided. This page will also be used to monitor the progress of the project.

What has been agreed upon

The following agreements have been made between Sun and the nl.openoffice.org community.

• We (nl.openoffice.org) will be translating the help files for the Writer module.
• Alpha CRC is the translation company hired by Sun. They will do the remaining translations.
• We will review the translations made by Alpha and give them feedback about this.
• Alpha will make a glossary that will be used by us and Alpha for the localization.
• Communication between Alpha and the community will go through the localization mailinglist and this web page.

Tasks

The following tables give an overview of the tasks that have to be (or have been) carried out for this project. A more detailed overview of the progress of the translation and reviewing tasks can be found on the coordination page.

Working methods

There has been agreed upon to use the open source version of the Sun Translation Editor for translating. This can be downloaded by using the following links: Windows Linux/Unix/Solaris

The glossary can be used as tool for translation. The glossary can be downloaded here. The style guide will be available there also soon.

Translation goes as follows:

The translation of the GUI and help is already finished. There's still a lot of reviewing work to be done. More information on that can be found at the bottom of this page.

• Download the translation editor (see links above).
• Install the translation editor. To make the translation editor work you need the java runtime environment (j2re). This can be downloaded from the website of Sun.
• Download the files that have to be translated. This can be done by clicking the following link. This file contains 11 smaller files. You can choose one of these files to translate. The table below shows which files are already translated and which files still have to be translated. Please send a mail to localization mailinglist in which you state which file you're about to translate.
• In the translation editor, make a new project by choosing File -- New Project from the menu. Set the languages and give the project a name.
• Now you can open open the file that has to be translated by choosing File -- Open from the menu.
• On the left side of translator window is the English text, on the right side the Dutch text. You can edit the text on the right side. Please make sure you don't change any of the tags (slashes, bookmarks and so on).
• After you finished translating a segment, rightclick the segment and choose Mark as -- translated from the menu. You can then continue to the next segment.
• When you're finished translating the document you can zip it an upload it to issue 36620. Please let us know you're finished by sending an email to localization mailinglist.
  Please make sure you don't change the name of the file. This cause problems when the files are merged.

Final Reviews

Before the Dutch version of OpenOffice.org can be released, a number of reviews have to be done. These are:

• Review GUI
• Review accelerator keys
• Review Help

The following section is a guideline on how to proceed.

Review GUI

The purpose of this review is to correct errors in the translation of the GUI. All translation errors found in the GUI have to be registered in IssueZilla by creating issues. Please keep in mind the following when submitting these issues:

• The issues shouldn´t grow too large. Please limit the number of errors to 10.
• Component: ui
• Subcomponent: ui
• Assign to: iano
• Summary:NL: GUI with description of errors
• The Issue description will hold the errors. The following information is needed for this:
• the key-id of the string that has to be changed
• current text in string (in English)
• new text for string (in Dutch of course :-) )
• the path to the string (e.g.: File --> print preview --> page)
• All comments in English please.

Have a look on the coordination page to see who's doing what and to see what the progress is. The key-id build needed for this can be downloade here.

Review accelerator keys

The accelerator keys are shortcut keys that can be used to start functions or open menus, e.g. Alt+B for File menu and Ctrl+s voor "Save".
Until now, this hasn't been a hot item, so it needs some work. For this review there have to be created some issues in IssueZilla. Please keep the following in mind when submitting these issues:

• The issues shouldn't grow too large. Group the errors of one menu or dialog in one issue.
• component: ui
• subcomponent: ui
• assign to: iano
• summary: NL: Keys with description of the problem
• The Issue description will hold the errors. Please add the following information:
• de key-id of the string that has to be changed.
• list the current accelerator key by means of a "~".
• list the new accelerator key, also with a "~".
• The accelerator keys should correspond as much as possible with OOo1.x.x and the OS standard.
• All comments in English please.

Have a look on the coordination page to see who's doing what and to see what the progress is. The key-id build neede for this can be downloade here.

Review help

A large part of the help files is translated by Alpha CRC. The other part is translated by the community. A review of the complete set of help files still has to be done. To review the help, the contents page can be used. By browsing to the contents from top to bottom each page can be reviewed. How the review should be performed and what's needed for it can be read in this document (Dutch only, sorry). The progress can be monitored on the coordination page.

Keeping track of issues

The coordination page will hold a list of issues (as Calc spreadsheet), along with they're status.

Who are participating?

This table gives an overview of who will be participating in the project. The table only lists the persons who agreed on having their names here. So it's possible there are more, but I haven't received their approval yet.

All help is welcome!

All help with this project is welcome. You can sign up on the localization mailinglist

Questions and remarks

Last updated on: December 19, 2005