wxWindows internationalization

Available translations | How to help

wxWindows uses a certain number of user-readable strings such as `"help"` or `"Load file"` which should be translated to the users language if it is different from English. wxWindows has built in support for internationalization (i18n from now on) which allows for this to happen automatically if the translations to the current language are available.

You may find here the list of all existing translations with the addresses of the official translators whom you should contact if you would like to submit any corrections to the translations for your language. Also, please see below if you would like to translate wxWindows to your language if it is not mentioned here (or to help with one which already is -- it is quite helpful to have several translators for one language at least for proof reading).

Available translations

Below is the table containing the list of languages supported by wxWindows. The columns of this table have the obvious meaning: in each row you will see the language, the official translator (if any) for it and the status of the translations as of wxWindows 2.3.

Languages supported in wxWindows 2.x
Language | Status | Translator(s)
Chinese |  | mrfx
Czech |  | Vaclav Slavik
Danish |  | Leif Jensen, Henrik Rćder Clausen
Dutch |  | Patrick Hubers
English (UK) |  | n/a
Finnish |  | Kaj G Backas
French (standard) |  | Stephane Junique, Lionel Allorge, Gilles Guyot
German |  | Daniel Reith, Gerhard Gruber, Stefan Hedemann, Dr. Detlev Reymann, Mark Johnson
Greek |  | Tsolakos Stavros
Hungarian |  | Végh János Dr.
Indonesian |  | Bambang Purnomosidi D. P.
Italian |  | Marco Cavallini (Koan Software)
Polish |  | Piotr Mackowiak
Portuguese |  | Bernardo Santos Wernesback
Russian |  | Roman Rolinsky, Vadim Zeitlin Andrew V. Samoilov
Serbian |  | Zlatko Rosandic
Spanish |  | Guillermo Rodriguez Garcia
Swedish |  | Jonas Rydberg, Kaj G Backas
Turkish |  | Hakki Dogusan

How to help

wxWindows uses the standard GNU gettext tools for i18n so if you are already familiar with them you shouldn't have any problems with working on wxWindows translations. Here are the the steps you should follow:

1. Get the latest version of the file `locale/wxstd.po` from the wxWindows source tree: if you're using cvs or the daily snapshots, you should already have it. Otherwise you can always retrieve it directly from the cvs repository via the Web interface here.
2. Rename it to `XY.po` where `"XY"` is the 2 letter ISO 639-1 language code for your language.
3. Translate the strings in this file using either your favourite text editor or a specialized tool such as Vaclav Slavik's excellent poEdit utility.
4. Verify that your translations can at least be compiled (even if they are yet incomplete) by running `msgfmt -v XY.po` command: please note that you must use the `-v` option. In particular, please fill the header fields because msgfmt doesn't accept the default values for them.
5. Send the finished translation to Vadim Zeitlin and it will be added to the next wxWindows release or snapshot.

In addition, please consider subscribing to the very low volume wxWindows translators mailing list on which the news especially important for the translators are announced.

Thank you in advance for your help!

Please contact me with any comments/suggestions.