Difference between revisions of "Wiki Translation"

Revision as of 22:44, 24 November 2010

Wiki Translations HOWTO

Find the English version of a page in the main namespace.
(If there is no english version, you create one by following the HOWTO).

If the languages tool bar is not displayed at the top (as you see on this page for example) then edit the page, and add the following wiki text:

{{Languages|Page_name}}

While you're editing, copy the wiki text of the entire page to your clipboard. ...now 'Save'

Where it says 'missing languages', follow a red link to begin creating the new wiki page. Paste in the text and start rewriting it in english. New new page title should have a language prefix.

See also Wiki Help.

Note: before saving the new page, your language is shown as a missing language in the preview. However, after you have saved it, your language is still shown in the missing language box with black colour and bold type. This strange thing is caused by a template cache. Purge cache to rescan the available languages. Your language will be shown as available.

The Instructions for the Languages Template

This is a template that lists all languages available. It is based on parser functions from mediawiki and the ISO 639-1 language code.

Brief Instruction

1. All page names are in English.
   Every translated page needs a page name with a language code as a prefix, followed by a colon and the english page name.
   If the "plain" english page name content is written in English, the english page name does not have a prefix in the file name. If the "plain" english page name content is written in some other language (ie WikiProject France), the english translated page does need a prefix of "en" (ie en:WikiProject France).
   Example:Page_name - fr:Page-name - de:Page_name
2. the following has to be included in each page: {{Languages|Page_name}}

If you click on "missing languages", and then you click on a red link, it automatically opens a new page with the right suffix and the right page name. Copy the original text to this page and translate it. In the first line you put {{Languages|Page_name}}

Example for actually implemented namespaces and languages (2009-6):

Page_name
DE:Page_name
EN:Page_name 
ES:Page_name
FR:Page_name 
IT:Page_name 
NL:Page_name

This automatically generates a language menu consisting of links to the original page (in English) and all translated pages. The links are written in the respective language: Deutsch, English, Français, etc.

Pages with Title in Foreign Language

Pages with names in a national language or other names can create the automatic menu by redirect:

in XX:Page_name:

#REDIRECT [[Page_name]]

in XX:translated title of "Page_name") the English title has to be added as parameter in the template:

{{Languages|Page_name}}

Interface Selection

If you want to change the design of the bar, translate messages or change where the help bottom links to, you can do it by adding the 2nd parameter of your design template.

{{Languages|Key:highway|Fi:Languages/Interface}}

Copy the Template:Languages/Interface as your first template.

Note: Technically, you can make a interface with the translated language as above, it is not recommended to use. Because this template is set for other language users to go back to their language versions, the translated messages can not be read for them. See also this discussion page.