AncaWhy continuous localization
In today’s digital world, more and more software is becoming alive. This is due to a shift in the software industry from a linear approach to software development to an agile approach. Apps and websites are updated all the time, in small chunks, instead of being built in long development cycles, culminating with big releases. Thus, when the software product is launched, it is no longer the end of the development process for it, but the beginning.
Naturally, if you are continuously developing your multilingual software product, you should also continuously localize it. You don’t want to leave behind any of your users when you roll out new features. Nor do you want to look unprofessional, by not localizing parts of your software in certain languages. So it’s a good idea to aim for a continuous approach on localization.
What is POEditor
POEditor is an online localization service and translation management system, designed to help all parties involved in the localization process on their quest to achieve a continuous workflow.
As a freemium SaaS, POEditor offers free and paid accounts and supports free of charge the localization of open source software with an OSI-approved license.
If you use a translation and localization management service like POEditor, you’re likely to see better collaboration between team members, an increase in automation and productivity, and more streamlined workflows all around.
Using POEditor’s integration with GitHub for continuous localization
Connecting POEditor to GitHub, it becomes a lot easier for translation teams to receive string updates from dev teams. Also, dev teams find out in real time when new translations are ready and add them to the software.
Setting up a localization project at POEditor
To start integrating POEditor into your localization workflow, first register or log in to your POEditor account. Then add a project in your Dashboard and the languages your software currently supports (including the source language). Then add the languages you want to further localize into.
Setting up the GitHub integration
POEditor can connect with both the cloud and the installed versions. To connect, follow the instructions in the GitHub Integration page.
Once you set up the connection, you can start linking the languages in your POEditor project with the localization files in your repos.
Import the terms and the translations from the source file and from here on, you can start customizing things.
Each linked language has its own settings. In settings, you can tag particular groups of string on import (all, new, obsolete, with changed translations) or to set filters for exporting to GitHub.
For a plus of automation, you can use Webhooks. They help to keep the files in your repos in sync with your POEditor projects. With a webhook, you or anyone in your team can update from anywhere the strings in your source language in POEditor. You can also signal (with the fuzzy flag) if translations in the other languages need revision.
Translation options
To translate the strings brought from your files on GitHub, POEditor offers multiple translation options:
- Assigning translators to specific languages (by adding them as contributors)
- Crowdsourcing translations from your community (using public projects)
- Ordering human translation services
- Machine translation
According to your resources and needs, you can combine the available translation options in whatever way suits you best.