How-to (Legacy Manual Process)

Warning

The new preferred method to translate is via Weblate. The process described here still works and is supported in case you for some reason prefer it.

Translation Software

To translate, you’ll want to have gettext and git installed:

apt-get install gettext git

For translating itself you need a PO editor like Poedit:

apt-get install poedit

Translation Process

Get the QL code:

$ git clone https://github.com/quodlibet/quodlibet.git
$ cd quodlibet

You can find the translation file for your chosen language in:

./po/<lang>.po

In case there’s not already a translation for your language, create one:

$ ./setup.py create_po --lang=<mylang>

Update translations so all new strings that were added since the last translation update get included:

$ ./setup.py update_po --lang=<mylang>

Now start translating…

$ poedit ./po/<lang>.po

Test the translation by generating MO files and running Quod Libet and Ex Falso. build_mo will create a ‘build’ directory including the processed translations and if ‘build’ is present QL/EF will use these translations instead of the global ones.

$ ./setup.py build_mo --lang=<mylang>
$ ./quodlibet.py
$ ./exfalso.py

If your active system language is not the one you are translating, you can run them like:

$ LANGUAGE=<mylang> ./quodlibet.py

Finally run our unit tests to make sure the translation will not cause programming errors. If it says something else, there’s a problem with the translation.

$ ./setup.py test --to-run PO.<mylang>

And as a last step create a pull request with your changes: https://github.com/quodlibet/quodlibet/pulls