We've designed Alaveteli to be used in many different jurisdictions all around the world. If it doesn't already support the language you need, you can help by translating it. This page explains how.
## Alaveteli's translations You don't need to be a programmer to translate Alaveteli -- we use an external website called Transifex to help manage translations. This makes it easy for translators to get to work, but it does mean you (or your technical team) need to do a little extra work to get those translations back into Alaveteli when they are ready. The Transifex project is at [https://www.transifex.net/projects/p/alaveteli](https://www.transifex.net/projects/p/alaveteli) -- you'll probably want an account there (ask on the mailing list). It has a fairly easy-to-use interface for contributing translations. Alaveteli implements translations using GNU gettext and `.pot` & `.po` files. If you're a developer, you should read [internationalising Alaveteli]({{ site.baseurl }}docs/developers/i18n/). ## What a translator needs to do **If you're just working on translating Alaveteli into a language you know, then this section is for you.** When a developer adds a new feature to the user interface in Alaveteli, they use some code to mark sentences or words ("strings") that they think will need to be translated. When the Alaveteli release manager is planning a release, they will upload a template containing all the strings to be translated (called a POT) to Transifex. This causes your own translations in Transifex to be updated with the latest strings. When you visit Transifex, it will prompt you to fill out values for all new strings, and all strings that have been modified. In the case where a string has only been slightly modified, such as with punctuation ("Hello" has become "Hello!"), Transifex will suggest a suitable translation for you (look for the "suggestions" tab under the source string). In order for this feature to work properly, the release manager has to download your translations, run a program that inserts the suggestions, and then upload them again. Therefore, when a release candidate is announced, make sure you have uploaded any outstanding translations, or you will lose them. When a release candidate has been annouced, there is a **translation freeze**: during this period, developers must not add any new strings to the software, so you can be confident that you're translating everything that will be in the final release. The release manager will also give you a **translation deadline**. After this date, you can continue to contribute new translations, but they won't make it into the release. ### General notes on translation in Transifex Some strings will have comments attached to them from the Alaveteli application developers about the context in which the text appears in the application — these comments will appear under the 'Details' tab for the text in Transifex. Some strings will have **placeholders** in them to indicate that Alaveteli will insert some text of its own into them when they're displayed. They will be surrounded by double curly brackets, and look like this:
some text with {{placeholder}} in it
For these strings, don't translate the placeholder. It needs to stay exactly
the same for the text to be inserted properly:
ein Text mit {{placeholder}} in ihm
Similarly, some strings may contain small bits of HTML — these will have
code in angle brackets (it might really be indicating that the text is a link,
or that it needs special formatting). For example:
please <a href=\"{{url}}\">send it to us</a>
Again, don't edit the bits between the angle brackets — preserve them in your
translation, and just edit the text around them. So the example might become:
bitte <a href=\"{{url}}\">schicken Sie es uns</a>
Some strings are in the form of two pieces of text separated by a vertical
bar (`|`) character, e.g. `IncomingMessage|Subject`. These represent attribute
names, so `IncomingMessage|Subject` is the subject attribute of an incoming
message on the site. Do not prioritise these types of text when translating --
they do not appear on the site anywhere at the moment, and when they do, they
will only be used in the admin interface. If you do translate them, only
translate the text that comes *after* the `|`.
## How the translations get into Alaveteli
In order to get the translated strings from Transifex into Alaveteli, follow
the instructions in these [deployment notes]({{ site.baseurl }}docs/developers/i18n/#deployment-notes).
This will be the job of the technical people on your team (or
even mySociety's release manager) -- if translators aren't technical, they can
use Transifex without needing to worry about this.
## Developers and internationalisation
If you're writing new code for Alaveteli, then you're a developer, and you
need to understand how to make any text you add easy for translators to work
with -- see the page about
[internationalising Alaveteli]({{site.baseurl}}docs/developers/i18n/).