SeaMonkey:Localization
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This page describes the process of creating a SeaMonkey localization. If you want to use a localized SeaMonkey version, see our download page.
Contents
Starting a new localization vs. joining an existing one
There is a big difference between starting a new localization effort or joining an existing one, even if in the latter case the localization has been stalled for a while. If you are trying to start a whole new localization team, please visit L10n:Localization_Process for the general process of creating a new Mozilla localization team.
If you are joining an existing localization team, your first step should be contact the appropriate localization team. The team will guide you following their best practices and internal procedures.
Using Pontoon to translate SeaMonkey
Mozilla is promoting the use of Pontoon as the default tool for localizing all Mozilla products and projects. Undoubtedly, it is easier to work with it for newcomers than the more technical procedure outlined in the following section. Still, you need to be aware of the following:
- Pontoon does not yet allow to translate built-in SeaMonkey Help. Translating SeaMonkey Help is, of course, welcomed, but not mandatory, so you could start translating in Pontoon SeaMonkey UI and eventually provide the translation of SeaMonkey Help in a separate bug.
- As said above, if you want to contribute to an existing localization team, please don't start a localization effort for SeaMonkey in Pontoon prior to getting in touch with your team.
- Keep in mind that the shared components of Mozilla runtime are packaged in Pontoon as part of Firefox Desktop. Thus, to complete your SeaMonkey localization using Pontoon, your team also needs to translate Firefox Desktop.
If SeaMonkey is not listed as a project in Pontoon, the team manager for your locale can ask it to be added.
The source-based process for SeaMonkey
There is an alternative method if you don't like web-based tools or have limited internet access and prefer to work offline. You can mirror the en-US localization files, translate them locally and then upload the changes. It involves some technical knowledge, though, since you work directly with Mercurial repositories. This allows us to have all localization files in central repositories on hg.mozilla.org, share the translation for the common Mozilla core with the other mentioned applications, and build official release builds as well as nightly builds directly from the repository.
The following documents are good starting points for information:
Some bits of the above documents may be obsolete. Specifically, you should be using the following Mercurial repositories:
- Gecko-strings is an artifacted repository that puts together just the en-US L10n files from both Central and Beta. This is, from the point of view of a localizer, a read-only repository.
- L10n Central ab-CD, where ab or ab-CD is your locale code, depending of whether the ab language has regional variants, is the target repository for your locale, also for both Central and Beta.
As said, you will need to have some knowledge about using Mercurial before contributing to localization through it. If, after reading the above documents and those linked from them, you still have questions, please use the mozilla.dev.l10n newsgroup to ask.
Once your localization gets complete (check that with compare-locales), please file a bug for adding your locale to all-locales for SeaMonkey (in "SeaMonkey > Build Config") and assign it to "RickieES" so we can add you there and repackaging of nightlies will be done.
Once added to all-locales, your localization will appear in the "sea-central" tree of the Mozilla L10n dashboard. We're experiencing some trouble to automate builds, but once we sort it out, localized nightly builds as well as language packs will be created and uploaded to latest-comm-central-trunk-l10n.
Localized extensions
The extensions that SeaMonkey 2 includes by default can also be localized, but there are different ways to achieve that for different extensions:
If you also want to get a localized ChatZilla in your builds, your language can be added to the supported list for that extension, as pointed out in the CVS-based ChatZilla L10n packs message on mozilla.dev.l10n.
And finally, the "SeaMonkey Debug and QA UI" extension does not support localization at all, as it is not even included in release builds of SeaMonkey, it's supposed to be used for testing purposes only. Please just ignore this extension when localizing SeaMonkey.
