Creating a new translation / language in SupportTrio 3.x
Our products may very well come with your language included! To find out, simply check the languages dropdown to see what languages are available. If your language is not included in the list, do not despair: it is simple to translate our products into each of the languages you enjoy.
In your software installation directory, you will find a directory called "lang" where the language files are stored. Default language is always English, and so the content of the folder “english” is the base language files to start from if you would like to translate.
The first step is to create a folder for your language. Name it according to the language you are tranlating into. For the purposes of this example, I'll use "Pidgin", so I would name my language folder "pidgin". Next step is to copy files from the folder “english” to your “pidgin” folder. To make changes to any of these files you can open them up for editing in your favorite text editor. A program like Notepad or Textedit will do just fine.
Before you proceed with the translation, you may want to change general language settings in the “language.txt” file. It contains various encoding and locale parameters that you may want to change.
E. g., to modify a Character Set of a system to (for example) "windows-1252", you will have to find this line:
"utf-8" = ""
And to change that line in your language file to:
"utf-8" = "windows-1252"
After modifying general language settings it is time to get to translation itself. The software uses several files (admin.txt, help.txt, other.txt, public.txt) that describes what strings are used by user interface.
Inside these files, you will find that each line contains a single language string that is used somewhere in the software, in the following format:
"% of total tickets" = ""
"%d Answered Questions/Articles" = ""
"%d Approved Comments" = ""
To translate our product, all that must be done is to fill in each line which the translated meaning. As such:
See how easy? You'll be using our products in your favorite language in no time!
NOTE: If you wish to use double quotes in your language string, you will have to "escape" them with a backslash like this:
"1) Category \"%s\" does not exists." = "1) Categoray \"%s\" doesn'tay exitays."
E. g., you wish to use english language, but for some reason wish to call departments "Category"? No problem! Just edit english\admin.txt file and put the new name in quotes on a right side of equal sign (=). For example, find the line:
"Department" = ""
and change it to:
"Department" = "Category"
Once your language files are complete, simply go back into your General Settings page and select your language from the drop-down menu.
Updating your language files
Whenever we release a new version, and we add some new language strings (it is documented in our support forum), the procedure is this:
Open the original language file from the “english” folder of the ZIP file. At the end of that file you will notice a new segment delimited by date of distribution. Whenever we add some new language strings, they are appended to the end of English language file. That means that you will have to copy that new part, paste it at the bottom of your corresponding language file you are using, and then translate it as usual.
Your new strings will also be translated after that.
