If you or someone you know is a Drupal programmer — and you have an interest in translating xTuple ERP — then we have some news for you. Earlier this summer, xTuple published the source code for its Translation Portal software. This is the same software currently hosting 28 language projects on the xTuple community website. The source code was released as part of the PostBooks® project and is available under the same open source license (CPAL) as PostBooks®. So how does this affect you? And more importantly, how could this impact the growing international community? The answers are fairly straightforward.
Since xTuple began hosting the Translation Portal over two years ago, we've seen good progress on the translation front. As I mentioned, we're now hosting 28 language projects — and there are nearly 200 users who have signed up to help translate. That's not bad! At the same time, we've gotten feedback from translators who say the user experience on the Translation Portal could be better. We've strived to make user interface improvements — and we keep the translation files up-to-date. But we agree more could be done. That's why we've released the Translation Portal source code. Our hope is that someone (or a group of people) will take up the torch and help move the project along. Make the changes you think should be made. Improve the software — for yourself and for everyone.
Some background
The Translation Portal was originally conceived as a tool to facilitate asynchronous collaboration between users working to translate the same language files. The interface was written as a Drupal module, with translations being stored in a Postgres database in the back end. The software was designed primarily for translating the xTuple ERP user interface. However, it could be adapted to translate other software applications written using Qt. You can find and download the Translation Portal source code by browsing the PostBooks® SVN repository. Look for the 'xttranslate' project. Here's a direct link: http://postbooks.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/postbooks/xttranslate/.
We'd like to hear from anyone who wants to work on this project — whether you're a Drupal programmer or someone who knows a Drupal programmer. We will make every effort to incorporate your changes back into the Translation Portal we host so that everyone in the community can benefit.
And last, but not least, we have also published under CPAL a tool designed to generate translation (.ts) files from report definitions stored in an xTuple ERP database. The tool, called ReportTSGenerator, was designed by our Canadian partners Groupe Concerti, Inc. who agreed to make the tool publicly available. ReportTSGenerator is currently being used to generate .ts files for the Translation Portal, where users can then have access to and translate the labels found on all xTuple reports.