View source for Help:Wiki Translation

{{Template:I18n/Language Navigation Bar|Help:Wiki_Translation}}
This article describes how to '''translate articles into other languages'''. Please make sure to also read the last section called [[#Important Notes|important notes]].

== Step 1: Language Abbreviations ==

As an example let us assume you want to translate the following page to german:
* [[Development/Tutorials]]
The language abbreviation for german is '''de''', thus, all articles will have the ending " (de)" (with a leading space).

Reference:  [http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Special:SupportedLanguages list of language abbreviations].

== Step 2: Create the Article ==

Sometimes a link in the language navigation bar already exists. In that case, simply click on the link you want to translate. Otherwise, create the article manually:
* [[Development/Tutorials (de)]]
'''As initial content simply use the content of the corresponding english page'''. This way, no content is missing, and other readers can help with the translation.

== Step 3: Language Navigation Bar ==

The article must contain the following template line in order to show the language navigation bar:
* <nowiki>{{Template:I18n/Language Navigation Bar|Development/Tutorials}}</nowiki>
This magic line expands to the language navigation bar for the article <tt>Development/Tutorials</tt>. Note, that the line does not contain the language abbreviation.

== Step 4: Language Missing? ==

If the language is missing, please search for the right abbreviation (see Step 1). In the example above this abbreviation is " (de)".

Edit [[Template:I18n/Language Navigation Bar]] and add a line for the language you want to translate:
 <nowiki><span lang="de">[[{{{1}}}_(de)|Deutsch]]</span></nowiki>
Replace 'de' by the language abbreviation and adapt the visible name.

== Important Notes ==

As the wiki uses [[Help:Wiki Structure|subpages]] it is likely that translators run into the following issue.

Assume the following pages exist:
 1. Development/Tutorials
 2. Development/Tutorials/Debugging
Further assume you want to translate (1) to german (postfix ''de'').

The final page will be 
 3. Development/Tutorials_(de)
The english content of (2) uses relative wiki links like <tt>/Debugging</tt>. Translating ''Debugging'' in (3) might result in
 Development/Tutorials_(de)/Debugging      # wrong, or
 Development/Tutorials_(de)/Debugging_(de) # wrong
'''This is wrong.'''

The rule of thumb is that the language abbreviation always appears at the very end of the article, that is the '''right link''' is supposed to be 
 Development/Tutorials/Debugging_(de)
So be sure you adapt the links in the article to use absolute paths everywhere (i.e. no leading slash '/' in the wiki links).

== Quality Assurance ==

The system administrators and contributors try to keep a close watch at the content, but with foreign languages this is sometimes getting hard. It would be good, if you '''add yourself to the Watch list''' (just click ''Watch''). That way you will be noticed by mail whenever the article was changed. This will help to keep the wiki clean of e.g. spam, which unfortunately already happened.

Also, consider to '''add yourself to the [[KDE_TechBase:Contributors#Translation_Teams|translation teams]]'''.