Development/Tutorials/Localization/Building KDE's l10n Module

Building KDE's l10n Module

Tutorial Series	Localization
Previous	Using Subversion with KDE Building KDE From Subversion Writing Applications With Localization in Mind
What's Next	n/a
Further Reading	n/a

Abstract

For those working on applications in KDE's main repository, building and installing language support from KDE's localization (l10n) module is a good idea. Doing so will allow you to test applications in other languages so as to spot problems related to localization that may exist in KDE. Learn how to do just that in this tutorial.

Step 1: l10n

You must download, build and install each language in the l10n module separately. You can check out and build just the German, and XX languages using the following procedure:

svn co -N svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/l10n-kde4 l10n
cd l10n
svn up scripts
svn up templates
svn up x-test
svn up de
./scripts/autogen.sh de
./scripts/autogen.sh x-test
cd de
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=`kde4-config --prefix` ..
make
make install
cd ../..
cd x-test
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=`kde4-config --prefix` ..
make
make install

 

Note
You need revpath (may be found in package imake or xutils-dev) to run autogen.sh

 

Tip
Do not combine make and make install in a single step. It will not install anything.

For KDE Frameworks 5 the steps are the same except l10n-kde4 is replaced with l10n-kf5 and kde4-config with kf5-config.

Step 2: Test An Application

To run your application using, for instance, the German catalogs open a terminal (e.g. konsole) and type:

KDE_LANG=de myapp

where myapp is the name of the application you wish to test. Replace the de with the language code you wish to test, e.g. x-test.

The German language is a good choice for testing the layout of your application, as German translated strings tend to be quite long. French is also a good choice. The x-test language is useful for identifying strings in your application that are not translated.

KDE Frameworks 5 does not use KDE_LANG, so for KDE Frameworks 5 use this instead:

LANGUAGE=de myapp