Translate VideoPsalm into a new language

This tutorial describes how a contributor can translate the VideoPsalm application into a new language.
It consists into translating the texts, buttons, tool-tips, messages, etc. that appear in the VideoPsalm dialogs.

It is easy to translate VideoPsalm into ANY language!
It is done directly from within VideoPsalm, and can make use of the Google Translate tool.
All you need is your VideoPsalm application and your own language knowledge, which is priceless!

A HUGE thank you to our precious contributors!

1. Contact us first

Before you start to help, please use the contact form or let us know by email.
This will prevent potential duplicated translation work.

2. Check if your language is in the list

As of 2022, VideoPsalm is available in more than 50 languages.
The available languages are displayed in the VideoPsalm option dialog:

In the "General" tab, expand the language drop-down, and select your language :

If your language is not in the list, still maybe somebody may have translated it since you installed your VideoPsalm:

1. Make sure you run the latest VideoPsalm version.
   You can download the latest version from here.
2. Check the VideoPsalm online library.
   Your language may be newly available there:

In the Import assistant dialog, select "Import a language" from the VideoPsalm online library:

The VideoPsalm online library contains the up-to-date list of languages.
It highlights new or updated languages:

If your language is not available (= you don't see it in the list), read further...

3. Add your language to VideoPsalm

In the VideoPsalm options, in the "General" tab, click the "Translate VideoPsalm" button:

This opens the VideoPsalm integrated translation tool, from where you can change the texts that appear in the VideoPsalm menus and dialogs, or add a new language:

The label panel (1)
The label panel lists all the labels that VideoPsalm uses.
There, you can edit the labels, as you would in Excel.
By default, the "Comments" column is selected.
Comments help to know what a label is for and were it appears. (However, not all labels are commented.)

The language panel (2)
When you select a language in the language panel (2), a corresponding column appears in the label panel (1).

You need to click twice on a language to select it: the first click marks the language, and the second click selects the checkbox.
Keep the “Comments” ticked, as they will help you translate the texts.

Select 2 languages:

1. A source language, where you are most fluent with, or one that is close to your language.
The choice of the source language is critical, it can significantly speed-up your translation work.
If possible, select English, French, German, Dutch.

Note 1  Depending on the VideoPsalm version, labels are fully available in English, French and German.
Other languages may miss newer labels.

Note 2  Some translations have been done by an automatic translation tool.
For your source language, select a human translated language.

List of VideoPsalm human translated languages:

Afrikaans
Chinese
Czech
Deutsch

Dutch
English
Español
Finnish

Français
Indonesian
Korean
Lao

Lithuanian
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese

Russian
Swedish
Tamil
Thai

In this tutorial, for the source language, let's select English.

2. Select a target language. In panel (2), additionally select the language that you want to contribute for its translation.
Let's select Russian.

You now have 4 columns displayed in the label panel (1):
1. Id
2. Comments
3. The source language (English)
4. The target language (Russian)

Now is the right time to reorder the columns.
Drag & drop the "Comments" column header to get following positions:
1. Id
2. The source language (English)
3. The target language (Russian)
4. Comments

You get something like this:

If you don't need the "Comments" column, deselect it in the language panel (2) to hide it:

Use the mouse to resize the column headers:

4. If you can't find your language in the list...

Press the "Add..." button:

This opens the "Add languages" dialog, where you will find a lot more of the world languages:

Select a language and press "Add" to add it to VideoPsalm.

In the "Add languages" dialog, languages that are already available in VideoPsalm are grayed out, you cannot add them anymore.

If your language is not found in the list, add it manually:

In the dialog that opens, type-in your language name:

Use the name corresponding to the official language code, found here:
Official world language code lists

5. Translation work

Collapse the integrated help panel and maximize the window, to see more columns and rows:

• You can edit the texts like in an Excel spreadsheet.
• To sort the texts alphabetically, click on a column header. This brings to the top all untranslated labels.
• To sort on an additional column, click the column header while pressing the "Shift" keyboard key.
  This is useful for example to additionally sort on the id.
  Indeed, labels that are in the same Id range will be together, which is good, because they appear normally in the same dialog.
  
• To filter the texts containing specific words, type-in the words in the “Search” textbox:

• To find a phrase or expression, enclose it in double quotes:
  "Save the agenda"
  
• To display only labels that are not translated, use the filter and select the "(Blanks)" entry:

6. Automatic translation

Since version 1.27, VideoPsalm operates with "Google Translate" to automatically translate the labels in around 120 world languages.
VideoPsalm will translate the source column (column 1) into the target column (column 2).

1. Select the empty cells to translate.
Alternatively, you can select the source cells, it doesn't matter. The selected rows are what matters.
To select a range of cells, click the first cell, then, while pressing the "Shift" keyboard key, click the last cell.
To add more cells, click on them while pressing the "Ctrl" keyboard key.

2. Right-click and select "Translate selection":

After a short moment, the Russian text fills the selected cells:

The automatic translation function uses a free service from Google.
This function requires an Internet connection.
Your free translation credit granted by Google may get used up.
If you don't have anymore credit, VideoPsalm will fail to translate the labels.
In this case, wait for an hour or two to get your credit back again.
If necessary, instead of waiting, temporarily use a VPN, for example TunnelBear.
TunnelBear has a free plan that is big enough for this and it works wonderfully.

7. Check your translation

To check your translation in its context, select your language in the “Language” panel, then click the “Apply” button.
VideoPsalm will instantly display your translated texts where they belong, in every dialog.

You can then use VideoPsalm in the language that you just translated, and test if everything displays as expected.
Repeat this until you are satisfied with the result.

8. Save your work

Save your work by clicking the “Save” button.

9. Send us your work

When your work is complete, send us your translation by clicking the “Send” button.
Send us the relevant zipped (compressed) file, as an email attachment.
In this example, this would be the “Русский (Россия), ru-RU.zip” file (Russian):

Once we receive your language file, we make it available online for others to use.

When a new language is added to the VideoPsalm online library, all VideoPsalm users get notified, via a toast, the next time they start VideoPsalm:

When they click on the toast, VideoPsalm opens the language import assistant, where they can select the language(s) to add or update in their own VideoPsalm:

Let us know how you would like your card to appear on the contributor's page.
A picture of you or your avatar is welcomed.

Thanks in advance for your help.