How to Add Language to @Mail

• 1 Introduction to the @Mail Language system
  
• 2 Before making a new translation
  
• 3 Creating a new language file
  
• 4 Translating the english.lang file
  
• 5 Translating the Menu-bar Images
• 6 Building the new templates
  
• 7 Obtaining pre-translated language files
• 8 Related Technical / Support Information

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1 Introduction to the Mail Language system

@Mail will 'build' new langauages from one translatable master file, Rather than translating each individual html file, saving you much time. Once the @Mail has generated the new language templates, the will be shown in atmaildir/html/languagename/ (where languagename is the name of the translated language)

Both the language file and the menubar images need to be translated. The language file is a list of all the text used in the interface, you will need a separate language file for each language you translate @Mail into.

2 Before making a new translation

@Mail will generate the new template from the master template, in atmaildir/lang/html.

Important: Make sure that you make your HTML modifications to atmaildir/lang/html to suit your site, then when you build the languages the new templates will reflect your changes.

Note: atmaildir/ refers to the directory that you have @Mail installed on your server. Replace this with the full path to @Mail.

3 Creating a new Language file

Move to the languages directory

cd atmaildir/lang/languages

create a folder for the new language

mkdir [languagename]

Replace [languagename] with the name of your translation, eg Espanol

cp english/english.lang [languagename]/[langaugename].lang

You are now ready to beging to translate the file

4 Translating the Language file

To translate [languagename].lang, open it on your favouite editor.

pico [languagename]/[langaugename].lang

The language file contains instructions and a table of contents. Lines and begin with a # are comments and do not need to be translated.

5 Translating the menu-bar images.

Copy the images

cd atmaildir/lang

cp menubar/menubar-english languages/[languagename]/menubar-[languagename]

Open the Images and translate the text. Make sure that you save the image in GIF format, with transparency.

6 Building the new templates.

Repeat steps 3 to 5 for each language you wish to create.

Once you have finished translating, you must build the HTML files

cd atmaildir

perl lang.pl [languagename]

or if you translated more than one language file:

perl lang.pl all

This will extract the translated text and build the new HTML documents. Once the script has finished, check via the web for any needed alterations.

7 Obtaining pre-translated language files

Please feel free to send us your language files, this helps all @Mail users. We may have a language file that has already been translated ready for you. Please Email us info@calacode.com

8 Related Technical / support information

For more information please contact info@calacode.com