Developer Area/Language Packs

Here you can find information about developing new language packs for Mahara. If you speak another language, then you should be able to translate Mahara, or help with a translation effort already in place.

Remember to check the list of existing language packs at http://langpacks.mahara.org first - you may find that Mahara has already been translated into the language you want!

Launchpad translations

Most translations are now maintained in the Mahara translation project on Launchpad.

If you would like to help with one of these translations, first have a look at the list of translation teams. If your language has a team appointed in this list, you will need to join the appropriate team for your language before you can help with the translation.

If you would like to start a new translation, or if your language doesn't have an appointed team, you can help with the translation as soon as you have created an account on Launchpad.

How to start a new translation

If your language doesn't appear in the list of Mahara Translation status by language [1] (Click 'View all languages' to all available languages), you can start a new Mahara translation for your language. Here is a quick instruction.

1. Create an account on Launchpad if you don't have one. [2]
2. If there is a Mahara translation team responsible to your language [3], please join this team. Otherwise, please contact administrators of Mahara translator [4].
3. Once you are in a Mahara translation team, you can start to translate or review here [5].
4. Once your translation is ready for testing or publishing, please contact [email protected] to have your translation converted from Launchpad to the Mahara format, and added to the official list at http://langpacks.mahara.org.
5. You can continue update your translation on Launchpad. Your tar ball in Mahara format will be automatically generated and stored at http://langpacks.mahara.org.
6. There are some essential language configuration settings stored as lang strings in langconfig.php:
   1. thislanguage: (Required) The name of the language, in the language. This is the string shown to users in the language selection menu.
   2. locales (Required): A list of computer locale names for the language, in order of preference. For example: "en_US.utf8,en_GB.utf8,en,english-us,english-uk,english"
   3. parentlanguage: (Optional) If this is supplied, then if a string is not yet translaed in the langpack, Mahara will attempt to use a string from the specified parent language instead. (If the parent language doesn't have it either, it will fall back to English.)

For more information please read [6]

Gitorious translations

A couple of translations (currently just Czech and English(US)) are not maintained on Launchpad yet. For information about the older translation process, see the documentation on Translation Tools. For moving existing translations from the old process to the new process, see the instructions on migrating language packs from gitorious to launchpad.

If you are in charge of an official translation administrator, you can follow the instructions for add new tar ball language pack to launchpad