MEpedia:Template translation

This page is intended to keep track of the state of template translation on MEpedia.

Template status
The following table lists the template tags that should be translated. You can find a list of all language codes at MEpedia:All languages codes.

How to translate a template
In most cases, the template won't need to be translated from scratch, as translations can often be adapted from Wikipedia, MediaWiki, or TranslateWiki. But first check Special:AllMessages, as there may be a pre-translated message that can be used. There may be some minor customization needed.

Resources for translation

 * Special:AllMessages
 * TranslateWiki

Using the MediaWiki: namespace for template translations
Small wikis like MEpedia use "Template:" pages that can accommodate any supported language. (There aren't separate "Template:" pages for each language.) Therefore, if there is any user interface message embedded inside the "Template:" page, it should be extracted to a "MediaWiki:" page so the software can translate it as needed. Here is the basic concept of using the MediaWiki: namespace to internationalize a template: Also note that interface messages in MediaWiki: can accept parameters. For example: This article may require cleanup to meet MEpedia's guidelines. The specific reason is: $1 Please help improve this page if you can. ( $2 )
 * Move the embedded interface message from the template to a MediaWiki: page, and create translations there. (e.g. ,  etc.)
 * Inside the template, replace the embedded interface message with the “int:” parser function. For example:
 * Assume that the contents of  contains the following:
 * Inside the template, you can then replace the embedded interface message with:

Bulk creating system messages
If other wikis have system messages with translations you want to use these can be easily exported into a file. This is quicker and less prone to errors than creating them one by one. Wikipedia supports over 400 languages to varying degrees, so each system message may have a very large number of translations. Administrator rights are needed to import them, so it is best if the same person does the export. Places to export translated system messages from include WikiMedia's Commons, MediaWiki, and (English, French, German, etc) Wikipedias may contain some.
 * First make a list of messages to export by searching for system messages, eg WikiMedia's Commons search, set to German (de), create a file containing a list of all system messages you want for all possible language codes (eg MediaWiki:donate_interface/aa, MediaWiki:donate_interface/ab), and save on your user area (use the tag to keep one per line), or just save elsewhere. The easier way to do this is to copy the language codes system messages and replace "lang" with the system message you want to add.
 * Make sure each system message has the prefix MediaWiki: and each is on a separate line
 * Use Special:Export on the wiki containing the messages, paste a list of the names in the box (one system message per line), pick latest versions only
 * Save the file that it creates
 * Go to Special:Import on MEpedia to import these, which may take several minutes
 * Make a note of any system messages containing errors, the log file in Special:RecentChanges should contain more info
 * Bear in mind some system messages are extremely short (2 characters) and will appear on the right of the screen because those languages are written right to left, eg MediaWiki:lang/arc

Translations without system messages
The "MediaWiki:" namespace (interface/system message) method, described above, is the preferred way to do template translations, but if no system messages exist, and none can be found in translatewiki.net then they can be created within templates using Template:LangSwitch, which switches between different text depending on the current user's language code.

Example use: Template:In_category