[Cartoweb-users] Confused about .po files

Thu Oct 16 02:52:55 EDT 2008

hi

po are only human readable container for the text<->translation strings

when running the cw3setup script, the .po get compilated by gettext into 
binary .mo, these files are located in 
cartoweb3/locale/*langcode*/LC_MESSAGES/*projectid.projectid.projectid*.mo
these are the files actualy used by gettext to do the string replacement in 
real time.

the .po contains the string you want to translate.
For convenience, cartoweb include 2 scripts one can use to generate some 
basic .mo for a given project: client2pot and server2pot.
These script simply look inside all the files of your project for every 
strings included into I18n::gt(...) call (in php file) or into {t}...{/t} 
tag (in templates files). additionaly, the server2pot also get all the 
layer's labels from either the layers.ini file or the mapfile.
dynamicaly generated strings will not get "recovered" by those scripts 
unless someone provided some fake/hidden {t}..{/t} or I18n::gt(...), for 
example for the tools's labels.

client.po, server.*projectid*.po, server.po contain the raw (untranslated) 
list of strings for a given project.
msgid "IdRecentering"
msgstr ""

client.en.po, server.*projectid*.en.po, server.en.po are COPIES!!! of the 
raw .po but this time they ALSO contain the translated strings for the 
corresponding language.
msgid "IdRecentering"
msgstr "Identifiers recentering"

to quickly add translations to your projects, you can easily copy the 
existing .po files provided in cartoweb by default and modify them. You will 
have some extra translated/unwanted strings but nothing that cant be easily 
modified/removed if needed.
copy ALL the .po files into your project's po folder.
look at an existing demo /po folder to see whats there.

if you want "clean" po files, you need to run the client2pot and server2pot 
scripts to generate the RAW po files for your project and then COPY these 
files and rename them with the extra 2 letters lang tag (.po > .en.po) and 
EDIT them to add the translations for all the strings you want.
I would suggest moving/deleting all .po existing in cartoweb3/po/ BEFORE 
doing that, as if some .po already exist, the script will try to merge their 
content with the newly extracted content, which may be problematic.
so once you have emptied the /po folder, go to /cartoweb3/scripts/ and run 
the command "php client2pot.php *yourprojectid*" and "php server2pot.php 
*yourprojectid*"

if you see  ("zoomin", "query_by_bbox") it means the strings are NOT 
translated.
check that gettext is installed and that it works correctly (see 
documentation on how to test that 
http://www.cartoweb.org/doc/cw3.5/xhtml/user.i18n.html#user.i18n.translations.debug)
restart Apache too.
gettext is a bit buggy and sometimes you need to restart Apache to see the 
modification you did in the .po files even after you have run the cw3setup 
script to generate the .mo

regards
Oliver

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chris Duncan, GISmatters" <duncan at gismatters.com>
To: "Cartoweb Users" <cartoweb-users at lists.maptools.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2008 11:30 PM
Subject: [Cartoweb-users] Confused about .po files

>I am *not* trying to internationalize my application -- for our user base 
>and local application, there's no need to support any other language than 
>English.
>
> I would like, however, to change some of the text that appears (for 
> example, in the tips that pop up when you hover over a tool like the 
> zoom-in tool).
>
> I have tried to understand the system of .po files (defaults, 
> project-specific, alternate languages, sources vs. generated, etc), but 
> have become completely confused. I have not found enough info in the 
> documentation or wiki to clear up my confusion.
>
> Could someone please provide a simple, clear, concise discussion of the 
> following (if you don't have lots of time to answer, then please just skip 
> to item (c) which is my most urgent question):
>
> (a) When, and in what order, do .po files get used? For one thing, I'm 
> confused about what happens when I refresh the installation using cw3setup 
> vs. what happens at runtime when someone is using the site. I see that 
> there are *generated* .po files in the htdocs/po folder... I assume 
> *those* are the ones that actually provide text to the application at 
> runtime. But even there I find "default" and project-specific folders and 
> files. Where do "source" files live, and what is the chain of processing 
> that converts and/or merges them to create the ones I see in htdocs/po?
>
> (b) When do language-specific files get used? If there is both a client.po 
> and client.en.po file, which one gets used? What is the interaction of the 
> "generic" vs. the "language-specific" .po files?
>
> (c) Last, but most important to me at this time: Suppose I wanted to 
> change the hover-text of the "zoom in" button to say "Choose this tool and 
> click on the map to zoom in" (we have some very un-savvy users!). What 
> specific steps do I follow to make that change in the recommended way? My 
> project currently has *no* po folder or files... do I copy them from 
> <cartowebhome>/po and then modify them? Do I need to run server2pot.php 
> and client2pot.php to initialize them in some way? I'm totally lost on how 
> to proceed...
>
> One final detail that adds to my confusion: on my development machine 
> (WinXP, Apache server) I get message text like "Zoom in" or "Query by 
> rectangle" when I hover over the tools; when I upload my project to the 
> live web server (Windows Server, IIS) the tips are the message IDs instead 
> of the text ("zoomin", "query_by_bbox"). Why do they differ?
>
> Thanks in advance to any of you who can help me understand this! Cheers,
>
> Chris
>
> -- 
>
> Chris Duncan, Ph.D.
> President
> GISmatters
>
> duncan at GISmatters.com
> http://www.gismatters.com/
>
> 1 Tuckerman Ln
> Amherst, MA 01002
>
> Tel: 413-549-2052
> Fax: 508-637-2557
> _______________________________________________
> Cartoweb-users mailing list
> Cartoweb-users at lists.maptools.org
> http://lists.maptools.org/mailman/listinfo/cartoweb-users
> 