# Translating &kommander; dialogs

&kommander; dialogs can be translated to different languages. The mechanism is similar to the translation of other &kde; applications. The dialog is written in English, the texts that are needed to be translated are specially marked. A tool extracts these strings, another tool can be used to translate them. The translation then can be compiled and installed and the dialog will automatically recognize and use it.

Here is a short description about the needed steps to make a dialog translatable and translated it:

1. How to prepare dialog to be translated?

   Always use @i18n("This is my text") when you use some English text. This marks "This is my text" as a text to be translated.

2. How to extract the messages and create the .po file?

   Use the `kmdr2po` script to extract the strings. The script is inside the working directory of the source release tarball and should be installed to `$TDEDIR/share/apps/kommander/translating` as well.

   Just run:

       kmdr2po <your-kommander-dialog.kmdr>

   An appropriate <your-kommander-dialog.po> file will be created.

3. How to translate it?

   Use `KBabel` to translate it. `Use msgfmt` to compile the translation. Look at http://i18n.kde.org for help on this subject.

4. How to install the translation?

   Put the compiled *.mo file either to

   `$TDEDIR/share/locale/<your language>/LC_MESSAGES/` (will be available globally for all users)

   or to

   `$HOME/.trinity/share/locale/<your language>/LC_MESSAGES/` (will be available only for the current user)

   directory.

To open a different catalog (translation *.mo file) for a dialog, use the -c argument for kmdr-executor. The below example will take the translations from the Quanta translation file:

    kmdr-executor mydialog.kmdr -c quanta