How to Localize Your World

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Revision as of 14:48, 14 August 2007 by Stephany Linden (talk | contribs)
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Overview

Linden Lab sincerely appreciates Resident interest in translating Second Life's user interface and in helping to support the growing International community of Second Life. We've been working on figuring out the best way to incorporate Resident translation work and share it with the rest of the community.

We have received extensive interest in localization in the last few months, and we have been working on guidelines for processing the translation submissions we have already received. At this time, we are focusing on updating and maintaining the current seven languages in the viewer: Japanese, Korean, German, French, Simplified Chinese, Spanish (Latin American), and Portuguese.

For these seven, formally supported languages, we've created a semi-step-by-step recommended method for completing translations.

How to Make Language Changes to the Viewer

This document describes how to conduct linguistic QA within the Second Life (SL) Viewer. It also provides instructions on how to make, save, and send changes to linguistic XML files (meaning, files in various languages other than English) that are part of Second Life. Localization and linguistic QA in the SL Viewer is completed with a set of editing tools called “XUI”, which stands for “XML User Interface” and is pronounced “zoo-ey”. Localization can be facilitated more easily with XUI because translators can adjust text and layout within the context of the Viewer. The XUI tools also make it easier to find and fix truncation issues in context, and quickly see what changes effectively correct truncation.

The remainder of this document describes four primary steps that must be taken to complete linguistic QA in the SL Viewer:

  • Download and Install the latest SL Viewer
  • Find and Enable XUI in the Viewer
  • Find and Edit Linguistic XML Files
  • Save and Post Changes

Before beginning this process, please clear your Second Life cache.

Download and Install the SL Viewer

Having the latest SL Viewer is important for accurate linguistic QA. The Viewer must contain the correct linguistic strings for QA, and these change at least every couple of weeks. If you are not using the latest viewer, you may find yourself translating or fixing things that have already been fixed in a more recent version.

  • Run the program you downloaded to install Second Life on your computer. Install the Viewer in a location that is easy to remember, like your Desktop. If you have an earlier version of Second Life on your machine, please move it or uninstall it to ensure you are using the correct Viewer.
  • When the Second Life software is installed, double-click the Second Life icon (a green hand) to open the Viewer.
  • You will see the login screen. Enter your Second Life first and last name and your account password, then click Log In.

Find and Enable XUI in the SL Viewer

The SL Viewer can be placed in debug mode. In debug mode, tool bar options appear that aren’t visible otherwise. These tool bar options are needed in order to find and enable the XUI tools for linguistic QA, so place the Viewer in debug mode via Ctrl-Alt-D (PC) or Apple-Alt-D (Mac). The menu options “Client” and “Server” should now appear on the tool bar, to the right of “Help.” Now, find and enable the XUI tools by clicking:

  • “Client” on the tool bar
  • “Show XUI Names”

An “x” should appear beside “Show XUI Names” in the menu indicating that XUI is enabled.

Find and Edit Linguistic XML Files

Begin linguistic editing by opening menus, etc. and looking for truncation issues. If something needs to be changed, hover over the item in question with the mouse to find the name of the corresponding XML file. Hovering over “View” in the tool bar, for example, displays a context of “/menu_viewer.xml/View”. Next, find the XML file “menu_viewer.xml” to make changes by taking the following steps:

  • During the Second Life installation, a Second Life folder was also installed. It contains a subfolder named “XUI”, which contains a folder for each language.
    • On a PC, the XUI folder can be found at: C:\Program Files\SecondLife\skins\xui (on a PC).
    • On a Mac, right-click on the Second Life (green hand) icon. Double-click through Show Package Contents > Contents > Resources > Skins > XUI. The XUI folder contains subfolders of XML files for each localization language.
  • Open the folder of the language currently in QA and find the file that corresponds to the “hover display”. In keeping with the above example, open the Japanese folder (“Ja”) and find the menu_viewer.xml file.
  • At this point, use an XML editor to make and save changes.
  • DO NOT EVER change any “name” fields.
  • DO NOT EVER change the XML file name. The Viewer looks for XML files with their given names and won’t find them otherwise.
  • Make change(s) and save them without changing the file name.
  • Return to the Viewer. Your changes should be reflected immediately in the corresponding spot in the Viewer (in this example, the “View” menu). If changes are not displayed, close Second Life, open it, and log in again. Changes should be reflected now.
  • We recommend making batch changes and closing Second Life, logging in, and verifying them.

Save and Post Changes

When changes are complete post them to the JIRA[1].

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