Language pack

From ZekrWiki

1 Introduction
2 HOWTO create/update a langauge pack
3 HOWTO remove a language pack
4 Zekr language packs

Introduction

In Zekr context, a language pack is a small .xml file which consists of translations of phrases and expressions used in the application, in a target language. All language packs are located on

[zekr installation folder]/res/lang

and there is nothing to in order to add a new language pack, but just to copy related XML file there under res/lang directory.

HOWTO create/update a langauge pack

As of Zekr 0.1.0, one can easily set the user interface language in his/her own language.

Although this is quite easy to write a language pack, there are some tips that translators should take into consideration. The following are some tips about it:

Specify direction (rtl or ltr); Arabic-like languages (e.g. Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Pashto, etc.) are written right to left (rtl) unlike Roman languages (e.g. English, French, etc.) which are left to right (ltr).
Specify your language ID and your country (e.g. "en" as language ID and "US" as the country). The latter should be written in capital letters. Here is a good document about languages/countries code.
By default Zekr takes the first character of a menu name / menu item as a keyboard shortcut to access the menu / menu item. If you want to change this behaviour and want to put another keyboard character as a shortcut prepend the character with &. File becomes p.e. F&ile if you want to use the 'i' on your keyboard to access the File menu
Use UTF-8 compliant editors. Some good editors are: Notepad, SCUniPad, Frontpage, KWrite, Nodepad++, SuperEdi, etc.
If you already have a language pack, new terms are put into your language pack and highlighted with 3 spaces after value attribute and before closing the tag. By default the English meaning is put for all language packs when a new word is added. Here is an example:

<text id="QUESTION" value="Question"   />

The latest English language pack, as well as other language packs are here. You can upload your own language pack if you are a member of the group.

HOWTO remove a language pack

Removing unnecessary language packs speeds up startup time. To remove a language pack, first make sure that you do not select the language pack as default (Tools > Options > General > Language). After that, quit Zekr and remove the XML file from [zekr installation]/res/lang.