7.9 Translating ChessDB to other languages from English

ChessDB is written in such a way that the text can easily be translated to other langauges. This section of the tutorial explains how to translate to a new langauge and how to update pre-existing langauge files. At the time of writing, there are lanagugae files for Czech, Dutch, German, English, French, Hungarian, Italian, Norweigen, Polish, Portugese, Russian, Serbian, Spanish and Swedish. People are welcome to add other langauges if they choose.

Updating a pre-existing language file

There are 4 files associated with the English langauge. The latest versions are regularly updated and placed on the Sourceforge CVS server, so anyone can always get the latest versions. These 4 files are Each translation to another language has 4 similarly named files, but with the 'english' in the name replaced by the relavant language. The relavant files for other lanaguges are: etc. It is most important that the xxxx-basic.tcl file is updated although the xxxx-tips and xxxx-help files are important too. The format of the files must be preserved.

Format of the most important file - xxxx-basic.tcl

All lines in this file must be either: The best example of a translated file is the Swedish one
Most people tend to download the file from Sourceforge, then email it to me. I will then commit it back to the CVS, after I check it confirms to the file format. I have automated scripts which can do this, which I can share with interested parties if they want, but these need a UNIX or Linux machine to work. Generally, if you try to preserve the file format, all slight issues I can resolve.

If you would like to contribute to the tutorial or see anything that should be updated, corrected or improved, please contact David Kirkby. But please note David only speaks English.


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This page was last modified: September 16, 2007. 10:41:41 am GMT