This is an ultrashort introduction to translating kino into other languages.

Kino uses the GNU gettext system. To get more information about the
gettext system, try "info gettext". This can be a bit much though. 

To translate into your language, copy the file "kino.pot" into <your
language code>.po. E.g. for danish that is "da.po", for Italy it would
be "it.po", and so on.

You then need to edit the file, translating all the "msgstr"'s into
your language. Tools exists for this, probably the most wellknown is
the KDE tool "kbabel". Simply issue the command "kbabel da.po" to
begin translating. (Note that kbabel has a large number of keyboard
shortcuts, which enable you to work really fast with the tranlation
process).

When you have finished translating the file, save it. Now edit the
file "configure.in" in the kino source root. You need to find the line
that reads:
ALL_LINGUAS="da sv fr es"
change it include your language. So, if you are translating to Italien, make it
read:
ALL_LINGUAS="da sv fr es it"

Next, update the file "kino.desktop" to include descriptions about Kino in
your language.

Finally, in the kino source root, issue the command "./autogen.sh". When
this is completed, do a "make install", and then test your translation.

You can change between different translations by using the "LANGUAGE"
environment. So, if you want to test e.g. danish, you can start kino
like this:

env LANGUAGE=da kino

The untranslated version of kino will be used if you do e.g.

env LANGUAGE=C kino

A note on character encodings: Kino uses the pango engine, and it
needs its strings in UTF-8 format. gettext should convert
automatically, but if you have troubles, try experimenting with the
way kbable saves your file.

A note on credit: It is fine to add a string in your new .po file, to the
about string that states who the translation to a particular language was
done by. This way, people that use your translation can easily get in touch
with you, if they have corrections or suggestions.

* Updating the translation

Whenever new strings is added to the kino proper, you need to update
your <language>.po file. Do the following:

cd po
make kino.pot
cp <language>.po <language>.po.bak
msgmerge <language>.po kino.pot > <language>.po.new
kbabel <language>.po.new
mv <language>.po.new <language>.po
cd ..
make install

Mads Bondo Dydensborg, 2004.01.07
