Merge branch 'gh-pages-updating-translations' into gh-pages

1 files changed, 20 insertions, 4 deletions

diff --git a/docs/developers/i18n.md b/docs/developers/i18n.md
index deabc99a1..24c0c31e0 100644
--- a/docs/developers/i18n.md
+++ b/docs/developers/i18n.md
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ title: Internationalisation (for devs)
 
 <p class="lead">
     This page describes some technical aspects of internationalising the
-    Alaveteli code. It's mostly aimed at devs who are working on the 
+    Alaveteli code. It's mostly aimed at devs who are working on the
     codebase &mdash; if you just want to translate Alaveteli into your
     own language, see
     <a href="{{ site.baseurl }}docs/customising/translation">translating Alaveteli</a>
@@ -29,11 +29,27 @@ work and turns it into the files that Alaveteli needs (using gettext).
 
 For example, to deploy English and Spanish translations at once:
 
- * Ensure their `.po` files are at ```locale/en/app.po``` and ```locale/es/app.po``` 
+ * Ensure their `.po` files are at ```locale/en/app.po``` and ```locale/es/app.po```
    (for example, by downloading them from Transifex)
  * Set <code><a href="{{ site.baseurl }}docs/customising/config/#available_locales">AVAILABLE_LOCALES</a></code>
    to <code>en&nbsp;es</code>
 
+### What to do if you don't have complete translations for an older release of Alaveteli
+
+Before a new release of Alaveteli is made, the translation files are
+pulled from Transifex and added to Alaveteli's ``locale/`` directory in
+github. These represent the most complete translations for the previous
+release. Then the files in Transifex are updated with any new strings
+that need to be translated for the upcoming release. At this point old
+strings that are no longer used in the new release are also removed. The
+latest [release tag](https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/releases)
+for a release in github should contain the most complete translations
+for that release from Transifex.
+
+If you're using an older release of Alaveteli and you want to add to or
+change the translations, you can edit the .po files directly using a
+local program such as [PoEdit](http://poedit.net/).
+
 ### How to add new strings to the translations
 
 You need to do this if you've added any new strings to the code that need
@@ -63,7 +79,7 @@ For more details about the translations, see the page about
 This is complicated by the fact that there are two competing ways to define a
 locale+territory combination. The POSIX (and gettext and Transifex) way is
 like `en_GB`; the Rails way is like `en-US`. Because we are using gettext and
-Transifex for translations, we must deal with both. 
+Transifex for translations, we must deal with both.
 
    * for the Rails version of the currently selected locale, use `I18n.locale`
    * for the POSIX version of the locale, use `FastGettext.locale`
@@ -85,7 +101,7 @@ Some hints for adding the strings into the Alaveteli code:
 * We allow some inline HTML where it helps with meaningful context, for example:
 
 ```
-_('<a href="{{browse_url}}">Browse all</a> or <a href="{{add_url}}">ask us to add it</a>.', 
+_('<a href="{{browse_url}}">Browse all</a> or <a href="{{add_url}}">ask us to add it</a>.',
    :browse_url => @browse_url, :add_url => @add_url)
 ```