Translations

Installation

Do generate the mo files, you need to install the gettext utilities. On Ubuntu or Debian systems, this can be done using the following command:

sudo apt install gettext

Generate translations

Go to the dibisoplot directory before running the following command.

Step 1: Extract Translatable Strings

Use the xgettext utility to extract strings from your Python script and generate a .pot (Portable Object Template) file.

To generate the .pot file from the Biso class, run:

xgettext --output=locales/dibisoplot.pot --language=Python --keyword=_ --from-code=UTF-8 biso/biso.py

This command will create a .pot file in the locales directory with all the strings that need translation.

Step 2: Create and Edit Translation Files

For each language you want to support, you’ll create a .po file from the .pot template. For example, to add French translations:

mkdir -p locales/fr/LC_MESSAGES
cp locales/dibisoplot.pot locales/fr/LC_MESSAGES/dibisoplot.po

Now, open locales/fr/LC_MESSAGES/dibisoplot.po in a text editor and add the translations. Here is an example of what the content might look like after translation:

msgid "Hello!"
msgstr "Bonjour!"

msgid "This is a translatable string."
msgstr "Ce message est une chaîne traduisible."

Step 3: Compile the Translation Files

Once the translations are added to the .po file, compile it into a .mo file (Machine Object file) using msgfmt:

msgfmt locales/fr/LC_MESSAGES/dibisoplot.po -o locales/fr/LC_MESSAGES/dibisoplot.mo

The .mo file is what gettext will use at runtime to perform the translations.

Update translations

To update the translations, you can use the msgmerge command to merge the latest changes from the .pot file into the .po file. First, follow the step 1 to recreate the .pot file. Then, run the following command to update the .po file:

msgmerge --update locales/fr/LC_MESSAGES/dibisoplot.po locales/dibisoplot.pot

Then follow the step 3 to compile the .po file into a .mo file.