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How To Contribute to ERP5 Localisation

How To outlining the ways to contribute to adapt ERP5 for different countries.
  • Last Update:2016-06-30
  • Version:003
  • Language:en

This document structures and describes the steps involved in adapting ERP5 to specific countries and regions.

Table of Contents

Existing Languages

ERP5 is already available in different languages including English, French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese and Korean. Languages available depend on previous implementations and contributions from maintainers and the community. One goal of ERP5 is to have it available on a global scale and in the respective mother language of users.

The ERP5 official language will remain English since we think this is the only way to produce universal content. But we are interested in contributors who want to get involved in providing ERP5 in specific languages.

Contributing to Localisation

ERP5 localisation mainly consists in translating ERP5 and parts of the documentation. The localisation work is coordinated by the ERP5 maintainers at Nexedi. The standard procedure consists of 5 steps:

  • Get in touch with ERP5 maintainers
  • Translation of ERP5 Glossary
  • Translation of ERP5 Portal Messages
  • Creation of a Localised Accounting Plan
  • (Translation of the User Documentation)

which are outlined below.

Get in touch with ERP5 support team

Since you might not be the only one willing to contribute to ERP5 localisation, the first step is to get in touch with ERP5 maintainers who are coordinating the translation procedure and can create access to a shared workspace.

Maintainers will first require you to follow the user tutorials available on the OSOE - One Student One ERP website. It will guide you through a number of user-centric tutorials which show how ERP5 works and what terminology is used in ERP5 (Install ERP5 on a VM/Introduction to ERP5 User Interface).

In order to get in touch with ERP5 maintainers, please use the contact form. We will then open for you an account on:

https://www.myerp5.com/glossary

Translation of ERP5 Glossary

The glossary (full list) terms are used in the user interface. These are mainly names of the fields, buttons or menus available in ERP5. There is about 500 items to translate.

Once you have been logged in using the provided access information you should be able to access the 'Glossary' module. This module contains all terms of the glossary and in each language which is already available or which is currently being translated. So in order to be sure to not change another term, you must filter the list using the respective language ids. For example if you are working on Chinese, you will filter the list with the Language listBox by entering 'zh'. (How to filter a list). Translations are always done from English into your target language. For more information on translating the glossary, have a look at how to use the translation tab.

Once the list is filtered properly you can click on each term and translate it:

ERP5 User Interface | Screenshot Glossary Tab

You must translate the Title and the Description of the term. The Reference field displays the English term to translate. Please to not change it. Once you think the term is well translated, you can validate the term: 'Action...' >> 'Validate'

The term will be reviewed and if something is not well done, it might be changed again to the draft state. The translation of the glossary is completed when the 500 terms are translated, both title and description. Once it is done, you will be able to work on the next step which is the translation of portal messages.

Translation of ERP5 Portal Messages

In this step you will reeceive a PO file (alternatively: download) in order to translate the portal messages. Messages are usually shown when triggering an action and there are about 2 000 messages to translate.

In order to work on the PO file, we recommend you to use a program such as lokalize. This program will help you translating the terms.

Once the translation is finished, contact us again to request an ERP5 test instance, which you can use to finalize your translation. This step is important so that the translated terms are appropriate in the application context. If you wish, we can also help you to prepare a business template (bt5) with your translation and publish it in the ERP5 repository.

Creation of a Localised Accounting Plan

Once the software is fully translated, there is still the need to perform more actions to make them fully usable. The first step is the creation of a standard and localised accounting plans. This accounting plan must follow the local legislation and must be as generic as possible. Once they are released, contributors can create more accounting plans which can be more specific to a business type or an industry.

Optional: Translation of the User Documentation

Last, but not the least, if you want to make ERP5 accessible for the local community, you might consider about translating the User documentation. Translating the documentation is also very useful if you are a partner teaching ERP5 to students or clients as it will help you get a better overview and insight into many aspects of ERP5.

All documentation is web-based. The ERP5 maintainers will provide you access to an instance with document as well as instructions on how to create web pages in different language versions.

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