This repository is where we store and update the translations for the app Learn GDScript From Zero. This guide explains how to participate in the community contributed translations.

But first, thank you for your interest in translating Learn GDScript From Zero! This free and open-source app teaches GDScript to programming beginners, and your translations help make it accessible to more people around the world.

There are two ways to contribute to the translations. The easiest way to contribute is through Weblate, an online translation website. If you're already comfortable with Git and pull requests, you can also edit the PO translation files directly.

Weblate is a free, open-source web app designed for community-driven translations. You can start translating right in your browser with no setup needed.

Click the following link to head over to the Weblate project page and pick your language: https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/learn-gdscript-from-zero/

When you add translations on Weblate, it automatically opens a pull request on this repository and adds your changes as new commits. You don't need to do anything else: we'll review and merge your contributions from there.

This option is for contributors who are comfortable with using Git and creating pull requests on GitHub. If you don't have experience with that, we recommend using Weblate instead.

The app uses PO (gettext) files for translations. It's a popular format among translation professionals, and Godot supports it natively. You can use any program that supports PO files to edit them.

To get started:

1. Open the subdirectory for your target language (for example, es/ for Spanish or fr/ for French).
2. Edit the PO files using a dedicated translation editor. We recommend Poedit as it's free, works on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and has a really simple interface.
3. Save your changes. This will update the PO files and allow you to commit them with git.

When you're done, submit your changes as a pull request.

Poedit lets you mark translations you're unsure about as "needing work" so another translator can review them later.

If the directory for your language doesn't exist yet, create one using the two-letter ISO language code (like fr/ for French or ko/ for Korean). You'll also need to create PO files from the POT template files in the root of this repository. If you need help with that, feel free to open an issue and we'll set them up for you.

We split translations into many files per language so you can focus on one lesson or one part of the app at a time:

• application.* has all text from the app's user interface, including some placeholder text in reusable components.
• classref_database.* has documentation entries that appear in the practice side panel. These explain methods and properties to the student.
• error_database.* has explanations and suggestions for GDScript errors and internal errors.
• lesson-*.* has the content of a specific lesson, including the content blocks, the quizzes, and practices.

If you want to see how your translations look in the app, here's how you can test them locally. You'll need to clone the app's repository: learn-gdscript.

1. Copy your translated PO files into the app's repository. You need to put them in the i18n/ directory, following the same structure as this repository. For example, if you translated into Spanish, you would copy your es/ directory with all its PO files into the i18n/ directory of the app's repository.
2. Open the project in Godot.
3. Run the app by pressing F5.
4. Open the settings menu and select your language. The app will remember your choice next time.

As you add translations, rerun the app every now and then to check that longer or shorter words don't cause the interface to overflow or break. Different languages have very different word lengths, and this can affect the user interface.

If you find a UI bug caused by translations, please open a new issue on the app's repository and include a screenshot so we can fix it.

Note: Currently, the app won't automatically reload translations while it's running. If you update a PO file, close the app with F8 and rerun it with F5.

If the language you're translating for is completely new in the app, currently you will need to manually register it in the application source code. For that, open Learn GDScript From Zero in Godot, and open the script autoload/TranslationManager.gd. Add the two-letter language code of your language to the SUPPORTED_LOCALES array. For example, if you were adding Spanish, you would add "es" to the array.

This section is mainly for maintainers or code contributors to Learn GDScript From Zero.

The gettext format uses two file types: POT files are translation templates, and PO files are translations for a specific language. PO files are derived from POT files, which lets us track which strings changed between releases.

To update POT files, you need babel and babel-godot installed for Python. See the official Godot documentation for setup instructions.

Then, run the extraction script from the root of the project:

python ./i18n/extract.py