How to translate ePT into your language¶

ePT ships in English. A laboratory that reads the interface in the wrong words reports the wrong result. This guide covers translating the interface so it stays correct for the people using it.

Translations live in GNU gettext catalogs at application/languages/{locale}/{locale}.po.

Before you start¶

Install Poedit 3.x.
Ask the instance maintainer to run php bin/refresh-translations.php. That command pulls new English strings into your .po file. See CLI tools.
Read the next section before you translate the first string.

Translate in the laboratory testing context¶

ePT runs proficiency testing for medical laboratories. A PT provider sends prepared samples to enrolled laboratories. Each laboratory tests the samples and reports its results. The provider scores those results and issues a report.

Every string means something in that setting. Translate the meaning, not the English word.

Word	What it means in ePT	What it never means
PT	Proficiency testing	Physical therapy, physiotherapy, patient, part-time
Scheme	A category of testing, such as HIV Serology or Viral Load	A diagram, a plan, or a scam
Shipment	A batch of samples sent out to laboratories	A commercial delivery or an order
Round	One testing cycle of a scheme	A shape or a drinks round
Panel	The set of samples in one shipment	A screen area or a control panel
Participant	An enrolled laboratory	An individual person
Outstanding	Has not responded yet	Excellent, or a destination
Result	What a laboratory reported for a sample	An outcome in the general sense
Evaluate	Score a laboratory's reported results	Consider or estimate
Finalize	Lock a round so it can no longer change	Complete in the general sense

Keep one word for one thing¶

Pick one translation for each term. Use it in every string, on every screen.

Rotating between two words for the same thing makes the interface unreadable. A laboratory that sees three different words for "shipment" cannot tell whether they mean three different things.

These are the terms already fixed in the shipped catalogs. Match them.

English	French (fr_FR)	Vietnamese (vi_VN)
Scheme	Programme	Chương trình
Shipment	Expédition	Vòng ngoại kiểm
Round	Cycle	Vòng
Participant	Participant	Người tham gia
Laboratory	Laboratoire	Phòng thí nghiệm
Response	Réponse	Phản hồi
Deadline	Date d'échéance	Ngày hết hạn
Outstanding	En attente	Chưa phản hồi
Pass	Réussi	Đạt
Fail	Echec	Không Đạt
Excluded	Exclu	Không bao gồm
Not evaluated	Non évalué	Chưa được đánh giá
Evaluate	Évaluer	Đánh giá
Finalize	Finaliser	Hoàn thiện
Report	Rapport	Báo cáo
Score	Score	Điểm

Adding a language? Fill in this table for it first. Translate afterwards.

Steps¶

Open application/languages/{locale}/{locale}.po in Poedit.
Sort by translation status so untranslated entries come first.
Translate each empty entry. Check the source file path shown in the sidebar when the meaning is unclear.
Check every entry Poedit marks as needing work. See the section below.
Save the file. Poedit writes the .po and compiles the .mo beside it.
Verify your work. See the section below.

Check every entry marked as needing work¶

Poedit marks an entry orange when it copied the translation from a similar English string. These copies are guesses. They are wrong often enough that you must read every one.

Real examples found in the shipped catalogs:

English	Guessed translation	What it meant	Correct
Outstanding	destination	destination	En attente
Next action	extraction	extraction	Action suivante
unable to test	Activer les tests personnalisés	Enable custom tests	non réalisés
Rounds completed in	Các cột được đánh dấu trong	The columns marked in	Số vòng đã hoàn thành trong
No finalized rounds yet.	Chưa có tệp nhật ký nào	There are no log files	Chưa có vòng nào được hoàn thiện

Read the English. Read the guess. If the guess does not say the same thing, replace it and clear the mark.

Keep placeholders and markup exactly as they are¶

Copy these through unchanged:

Number and text placeholders: %d, %s, %1$s
HTML tags: <strong>, <br>, <a href="...">
Email addresses and URLs

%d becomes a number when the page loads. Deleting it removes the number. Changing it breaks the page.

To reorder a sentence that has two placeholders, number them. %s uploaded %d files becomes %2$d fichiers envoyés par %1$s.

Write for a professional reader¶

Use the formal register. French uses "vous". Vietnamese uses neutral professional forms.
Include articles. Write "Générer les rapports", not "Générer rapports".
Match the capitalisation style of the English string.
Use the correct accents and diacritics for your language.
Leave no space at the start or end of a translation.

Verify your work¶

Confirm Poedit reports zero untranslated and zero entries needing work.
Run msgfmt --check-format -o /dev/null application/languages/{locale}/{locale}.po. It prints nothing when the placeholders are intact. It names the line when they are not.
Sign in to ePT, switch the interface to your language, and open the admin dashboard.
Read the round table. Every column heading and status should read as a laboratory professional would say it.

If a string still shows in English, the .mo file is stale. Ask the maintainer to rerun php bin/refresh-translations.php --locale={locale}.

Where strings come from¶

Two sources feed the catalogs. Knowing which is which explains why a string appears.

Source	Example	Notes
Application code	Column headings, buttons, messages	Extracted from `.phtml` and `.php` files
Database lookup tables	Test result names, sample types	Extracted from `r_*` tables

Every instance has its own lookup data, so the catalog holds the values from all of them. Expect strings for tests and sample types your instance does not run. Translate them anyway. Leaving them empty costs nothing, but translating them helps the next country.

Reporting a problem¶

Report an English string that cannot be translated correctly, or one that is missing from the catalog, at deforay/ept. Include the English text and the screen it appears on.