Translate the user interface for V5 embossers
The user interface on the V5 embossers consists of two different interfaces. We have a synthetic voice interface and we have a web interface that is accessible when the embosser is connected to a network.
The voice interface comes from the Acapela Group. The different languages we have depend on which languages Acapela supports. The default language is British English.
The web interface can also be localised and the languages we support are selected by Index Braille.
When there is a new release, our development team creates TS files for both the speech and the web interface. These TS files contain previous translations and new sentences/text strings are added to the files.
As a translator you should have received a newsletter about translating the user interface for V5. In the newsletter there are two links to folders with the new TS files. In the newsletter there is also a specification on which file you should edit.
How to translate a TS file with QT Linguist
The Qt Linguist editor is used for translating a TS file. The Qt Linguist editor can be downloaded from the same folder as the TS files.
Open the editor with linguist.exe from the place where it have been downloaded.
Select File/Open... (Ctrl+O) and browse for your downloaded TS file that you should translate.
In the Context window you can see how many items that needs to be translated. For example in this case above there is (914-819) 95 text string to translate.
Use Next Unfinished (Ctrl+J) to jump to the first item to translate.
In the field Translation to [your language] type the translation for the source text.
If the source text includes a numerical variabel (%1), you need to type in where the numerical variabel should be in your language.
Adding a comma "," in translated text will add a pause in the speech output.
Select Done and Next (Ctrl+Return) to mark the string as translated and done. The cursor will jump to the next untranslated string.
Repeat the steps for translation of the source text text and the done and next step for all strings to be translate.
During the translation of items you will see that the number of translated item is increasing in the Context window.
After all items have been translated the numbers should be equals. The icon in the Context windows is a green check mark if all strings are good translated and done.
If there is another icon you will find that icon in the list of strings. The meaning of the icons are:
- Green check mark = translated and technical OK
- Yellow check mark = translated but there is a difference to the source text. (See Warnings)
- Yellow question mark = translated but not marked as Done (use Done Alt+Return)
- Grey question mark = need to be translated
- Red exclamation sign = technical error, (%1, not allowed character)
For deeper knowledge about how to use QT linguist for translation you can read more in the QT documentation for translators
After translating all the strings save the file.
How to translate a TS file with a text editor
The TS file that includes transaltions are XML files. This makes it possible to do the translation with a text editor. IMPORTANT NOTICE: When editing in the XML source file it is really important that the structure for an item is NOT changed. Follow the instructions below to keep the structure.
Since the TS file is an XML file it is possible to use any editor that support editing of XML. In this documentation we are using Notepad++. It is a free editor that can be downloaded from the web.
Open the TS file that should be edited with your text editor. The TS file consist of of and XML header and context sections. Each context sections have a number of messages that are the items to translate.
The message have a number of fields. It is one field that you should change when translating the message.
The field source includes the english source that should be translated.
<source>USB media not connected</source>
The field translation is wehere you should type your translation of the source text.
If the item is not translated it will have the value of type="unfinished"
<translation type="unfinished"></translation>
Remove type="unfinished" and type your translation within the > < as described below.
<translation>my translation of the source</translation>
Repeat this for all "unfinished" messages and save the file.
We recommend that you after changing the TS file with an editor open it in QT-Linguist to verify that the file is correct.
Send the file to Index Braille
To send the TS file/files to Index Braille you should attach it to a reply mail on the newsletter or send a mail to development@indexbraille.com with the file/files as an attachment.
Test of your translation
For the translation of speech sentences it is possible to use Acapela web page for testing
- Go to http://www.acapela-group.com/
- Select your language/region and voice
- Type the sentence in the TYPE YOUR TEXT box and press Synthesize.
- Press the Play icon to hear the sentence.
- IMPORTANT NOTICE: This is only for testing and the sentence might be a little bit different in the embosser.
It is possible for the Index team to upload a test version of your translation to your embosser for verification. If you want to have a test version uploaded you need to do as follow.
- Enable remote support on your embosser. (Press and hold HELP until remote support is enabled)
- In the reply mail with the translated file/files write the serial number on your embosser.
- When the translation files have been uploaded you will get a mail from the Index team.
- Run the embosser and the web interface to verify your translations. If you want to change any sentence or text string you can edit your translated file. Send the corrected file to the Index team and ask that it should be uploaded to your embosser.