PCSX2 Documentation/Translation Guide: Difference between revisions

PCSX2 uses an enhanced version of the wxWidgets internationalization module, which itself is based around GNU's gettext system. I'll cover the basics of gettext first, and then apply the PCSX2 enhancements afterward.

GNU gettext works by taking a program which is written in English, and finds the matching translated message in a language file (which is what you as a translator would be making). This means that the actual English version of each message is specified directly in the code itself where the message is used, like so:

MessageBox( _('PCSX2 Critical Error'), _('Your game sucks and we refuse to emulate it properly.') );

... in the above example the _() portion is what invokes the GNU gettext translator, and the strings inside the _() are what gettext uses to look up the translation. The translation is stored in a language file which is given a *.mo extension type, and this file is created from a human-readable text database (clled a *.po file) which is typically generated by the gettext tool itself, and then updated by hand by the translator, using a text editor.

See our UsingPoedit page for details on how to download, install, and configure Poedit.

The gettext system has many conveniences over other methods of internationalization, which typically rely on the use of pre-processor macros or dynamically linked functions that return string values. The main drawback is that this method relies on the exact English representation, including punctuation, which means that even the slightest change to a text string in PCSX2 will break the translation for that string. For most short messages, such as menu items and button labels, this is fine and is in fact desirable behavior. But for longer messages that serve as descriptions of actions or checkbox options, some of which include formating to fit them to the dialog box more neatly, it can be problematic. This is why PCSX2 has an extension to gettext that uses iconized string matching instead ot the usual literal string matching.

For especially long strings (such as dialog box option descriptions), or strings that contain newline or tab formatting, PCSX2 will use an iconized identifier for it's gettext lookup. These are identified in the gettext database of messages via their '!' prefix, which was chosen to help search and sort for these messages. Because this is a special PCSX2 extension to GNU gettext, you will need to reference the PCSX2 source code when translating them. You should probably be referencing source code during translation as a generla habit anyway, since the source code gives good hints as to the context of messages.

When referencing the source code, these iconized translation messages are used like so:

someCheckBox->SetToolTip( pxE( "!ContextTip:SomeOption", L"This is some option which will make your game run a lot faster, but probably makes it uglier too." ) );

The first string is the icon, which reads "!Tooltips:SomeOption". The second string is the current English literal translation. Poedit will show you the iconized version in its messages list, and you will need to open the source code reference for it to see what the current English translation is. It is important that your Poedit options are set up properly so that viewing the PCSX2 program source code works.

Message icons use a somewhat standard naming convention which will help you decide what's important for translating and/or what sort of formatting you should apply to the message. The common classes are:

Compile/Generate pot/po/mo file on linux

To update/upload a new translation, it is as easy as copy the new po into the locales directory, call the script, commit the result.

Downloading and Using POT files