Documentation Translation Process

NOTE for french translator: please join the ​OSGeo-fr ML to help to translate the documentation. The project is ​hosted here.

The following steps are for voluteers who are interested in contributing translated documents for the ​MapServer website:

1. Provide Jeff McKenna with your OSGeo User ID (which you can create at ​https://www.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/ldap_create_user.py) for commit privileges. You should also email the ​mapserver-dev mailing list, to let everyone know of your interest.

2. Go through the documentation howto (http://mapserver.org/development/documentation.html) and install Sphinx locally, to generate the necessary HTML files from the raw restructured text files. (and read through that entire howto document)

3. Checkout the docs from SVN locally (svn co ​https://svn.osgeo.org/mapserver/trunk/docs/ docs --username your-osgeo-id).

4. Create your language directory. ie: mkdir fr

5. Copy the images and include directories in your language directory. ie cp -r en/images en/include fr/

6. You can now begin your translation. Copy the files you want to work on in your language directory and modify them.
   NOTE: Don't copy blindly all the files from the en directory in your language directory. The server will automatically fallback to the English version the missing documents. Just copy/add gradually the translated files in the language directory.
   NOTE: The automated fallback to the English version of missing documents in the translated directories works only on the server, so don't be surprised if that doesn't work on your local machine while you test your translations.

Synchronization with English Version

1. Determine your current English documentation revision: svn info en (Check the Last Changed Rev tag)

2. Update your working copy: svn up

3. Determine the up-to-date English documentation revision: svn info en (Check the Last Changed Rev tag) It Would be a good idea to note the "en" directory revision each time you sync.

4. Generate the diff file: svn diff -r current-revision:up-to-date-revision en/

5. Apply the changes to your language directory and commit.