A certain percentage of non-English speaking users seem to have some trouble using the site. Even many users who speak English well would prefer to view the site in their native language. It is now possible for anyone to participate in a little community effort and translate the site to their own language.

Localization can be made to any language using an interactive web page. The language shown to the user is selected by the preferred languages list of the web browser (Firefox 2.0: Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced -> General -> Languages -> Choose, Firefox 1.5: Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> General -> Languages -> Choose, IE: Tools -> Internet Options -> General -> Languages).

The site is originally provided with English and Finnish strings, which can not be modified. The English strings are used as the master strings, which are then translated to other languages. They're organized in a logical, hierarchical tree where each English master string is paired with one or more translations. If multiple translations are offered, users may then vote on the best translation.

If a master string is replaced with a new revision, it's old translations will not be used any more. They will still be available as a basis for new translations in the editor. When new strings are added to the user interface, the strings will appear in the translation tool. Until a translated version is available, the English string will be used.

The tool is not yet real-time - translations will be visually inspected and when a translation with a sufficient percentage of translated strings is available, it will be manually installed on the web site. After we've gained some experience with the tool, the installations will be made automatic!

Guidelines:

1. Please log in to aprs.fi using your amateur radio callsign. It will be logged, together with your IP address, together with the translated strings. Contributing callsigns will eventually be shown on a credits page.
2. Pay attention to detail. If your language allows, please maintain capitalisation. If there is a colon (“:”) in the end of the line, remember to include it in the translation.
3. Some strings are used as complete sentences, and contain capitalisation and punctuation accordingly. Some (usually single words) are used on the header lines of tables, as buttons or links, or legends on the graphs. Please do not add punctuation to the latter.
4. Remember to maintain the <tags> and %variables% in the strings. They're case sensitive and need to be typed exactly in the same way. This is computer programming, sort of, so equivalent care must be taken in the syntax.
5. Some of these guidelines probably don't apply to some languages (Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, etc). I trust you to know better, so do whatever you need to do.
6. If the translation tool does not support your language, please give feedback. Post a comment on the blog, or write an email to the address mentioned on my blogger profile.
7. Remember to click the save button after translating each string.
8. If multiple users are translating to the same language at the same time, you might notice the updates taking place. The tool works a bit like the real-time map - changes made by other users will be shown to you without reloading the tool.

By submitting translated strings to the aprs.fi translation service, you agree to dedicate your work under the public domain (please read the full Creative Commons definition here).

aprs.fi proudly presents: The Translation Tool