Table of contents:
Introduction
Webpot is a web application for translating portable object files used for localization of free softwares. Webpot itself is also a free software distributed under the terms of the ![[WWW]](/wiki/tossug/img/moin-www.png){kind=small}
GNU General Public License (GPL). The main features are:
No software download. The translation is done on the web so a translator only needs is a unicode-enabled browser to get the work done. No additional softwares are needed. He can even contribute translations from an internet cafe.
Teamwork. Webpot enables teamwork by splitting a PO file into small chunks so every translator can pick his parts and work in parallel.
Locking. Webpot provides automatic locking on the chunk level to prevent translators from stepping on each other's feet. The lock expires automatically so no chunks will be taken "hostage" by a translator indefinitely.
Versioning. Webpot have a simple versioning mechanism to keep track all the changes.
Credit keeping. Webpot keeps track of credit bookkeeping ("who translated what") to allow accurate credit attribution.
Error correction. Webpot performs sanity checks on the translated string to correct most common errors like unbalanced double quotes and inconsistent newlines when compared to the msgid.
Internationalization. Webpot is an internationalized application. It currently supports 2 languages: English and Traditional Chinese. It uses your favorite language configured in your browser to display messages. You can translate webpot's PO file for your favoriate language.
There is a wish list of feature requests. You are welcome to add items into it.
Demo Site
You may want to see Webpot in full action to get a better idea what it is. There is a demo webpot installation. You can:
take a look at the list of PO files and start contributing your translation, or
import new PO files into the demo site.
Thank you for contributing to the free software movement.
Download
You can download the tarball of the latest version (0.2.2).
Installation
The detailed installation instructions can be found in the INSTALL file after you downloaded and unpacked the tarball.
More Details
The programs of Webpot are written entirely in Python, a free object-oriented scripting language. The development was started by Ping Yeh in April 2005.
Portable Objects
A portable object file is the translated/localized message file for an internationalized program. It is specified in the "Extended Description" part of the msgfmt utility specified in Linux Standard Base Specification. You can find it in nearly all versions of the spec, for example, 2.0.1 (a.k.a the ISO submission) or 2.1.0.
