POEditor

How to get localization alerts on Slack or HipChat

Connectivity is essential to a flexibile and efficient localization workflow. Being connected to your team at all times and also being connected to the constant flow of events during the localization process, you can react on the spot whenever something needs attention, increasing productivity and saving a lot of resources on the way. With this in mind, and somehow as a logical step to offering you a better solution for collaborative localization, we’ve decided to add two more options to the list of integrations available with the POEditor localization management platform- Slack and HipChat.

The walkthroughs below will help you connect your POEditor account to Slack or to HipChat. Make sure you log in both to the POEditor localization platform and to your preferred communication service before you begin.
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How to order translation services in POEditor

The POEditor localization management platform is mainly designed as a productivity tool for localization teams that want to use their own translators in the process of localizing software strings.

Despite this, we know that not everyone who reaches our localization platform has translators to assign to their l10n projects, or a community to crowdsource translation. For them, we provide quick access to professional translation services. Following the steps described below, you can easily order translations for your software localization project, directly from your POEditor account.

Step 1: Go to the Translation Orders page, choose your values and get a quote

In the Project page, click on the Translation Orders button to reach the New Order page. Here, select your desired values, then press Get Quote to find out what the translation price is.
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How to track the progress in a localization project

Whether you’re translating something with a few strings, like a theme or an app, or dealing with something with a zillion strings, like a big website, there’s one thing that will always come in handy to the localization manager: statistics.

Statistics can be helpful for many things, among which evaluating the general translation progress of the software localization project and calculating fees for translators.

The POEditor localization management platform comes with two categories of stats: for project owners and administrators, and for contributors.

What stats pages look like

At the top of every Statistics page, some general information about the localization project is available, such as the project name, the amount of terms in it, and the total of words and characters these terms sum up. Some users can see more information in this area, as a result of their role in the localization project and the Stats page they are on.
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Recovering translations with the History module

The History module is one of the features that makes translating software strings with the POEditor localization management platform a safe and easy process. What the History module does is store translations that are one hour old in a database, so that they can later be recovered individually (with the History link), or in bulk, for a particular language (using the Recover from history feature). Below we will describe how the History module works.

Consulting previous translation versions for individual terms

In any Languge page, you can find History links next to each previously translated string (remember – the translations must’ve been one hour old to be recorded). If you click on one of these links, you will see all the translations that have been made in that language for the corresponding term, as well as who made the translation and when.
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How to update your DRL in a l10n project with keys

If you want to translate an app that uses language files such as .strings, .xliff, .resx, .xml or .properties with the software localization management platform POEditor, it’s very likely your localization process will be a little different than if you were using any of the other supported language files. This is because these language files contain labels.

As a developer/localization manager/someone else handling a labels-based project with POEditor, you will start your software localization process by importing strings from a language file and setting a Default Reference Language.
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How to use the POEditor plugin for WordPress

With POEditor’s localization plugin for WordPress, you can manage your WordPress language files between POEditor and WP, from within your WP dashboard. Download and install the POEditor WordPress translation plugin according to the instructions in the Installation tab. Then follow this step by step guide to set up your localization workflow.

How to manage the WordPress localization workflow

Step 1: Go to your POEditor account, click on your username in the navigation bar and then go to Account Settings > API Access. Generate an API token and copy it to the POEditor plugin in your WordPress account, where it says POEditor API KEY. A page will be generated, with all the software localization projects in your POEditor account (if you have any) and your local WordPress language files.

Step 2: Click on Create project in the POEditor plugin to start a new translation project. A corresponding project will be created in your account on the POEditor localization platform.

Step 3: Add a language in the POEditor plugin to the newly created project, and then link a WordPress language file to it by clicking on Assign file.

Step 4: Press Export to send the terms from your local WordPress language file (.po or .pot) to your project on the POEditor software localization platform.

After you sent the terms from your local WordPress .po or .pot file to the POEditor localization platform, the translation process can begin. From the POEditor interface, you can assign contributors to each language to collaboratively translate the terms. Or you can make the translation project public on POEditor, so people can volunteer to translate the languages in your WordPress localization project.

If you want to add more languages to the translation project, repeat step 3. Don’t have a corresponding language file in your WordPress account to assign to the language you’ve added? You can use the POEditor plugin to create a new .po (and a matching .mo) file in the desired location.

If you use the POEditor localization platform instead of the plugin to add languages (or projects), just click on Refresh online projects list and they will appear in the POEditor WP plugin.

Step 5: Bring back to WordPress the localized languages from the POEditor localization platform. You can do this at any time, regardless of the translation’s progress. Just click in the POEditor plugin on Import (for individual languages) or Import all (to fetch all the linked languages in the translation project).

Following these simple steps, you can translate WordPress themes or plugins more efficiently.

What each button in the POEditor WP translation plugin does

To make everything crystal clear, below is a list of the buttons in the POEditor plugin. Each has a short descriptions of the actions it performs.

Change API Key: lets you change the API Key in the POEditor plugin, in case it was changed in the connected POEditor account.

Reset plugin: deletes all the local file assignments and detaches the WordPress installation from the POEditor accont.

Refresh online projects list: updates in the plugin the list of all the projects and languages in the connected POEditor account, along with their progress.

Assign file: links a language in a POEditor translation project to a local WordPress language file.

Import: brings to WordPress the .po and .mo files (containing both terms and translations) from the POEditor localization platform.

Export: sends the terms from the assigned WordPress language file to the corresponding POEditor localization project. Doesn’t touch the translations in the project.

Sync: sends the terms and the translations from the assigned WordPress language file to the corresponding language in the POEditor localization project. Also overwrites the existing translations and deletes the obsolete terms.

Import all: brings the .po and .mo files for all the languages to WordPress, from the POEditor localization platform.

Add language to: creates a new language in the translation project on the POEditor localization platform.

Create project: creates a project in the connected POEditor account.

Rescan for language files: searches WordPress for .po and .pot language files.

Congratulations! You now know everything about POEditor’s translation plugin for WordPress. You should be able to effortlessly integrate the POEditor localization management platform into your workflow. Is anything you’d like to further discuss about the plugin? Just drop us a line in the comments or use the contact form.

How to use the Translation Memory

To make a localization process faster, there are aspects of it that can be automated. Translation is one of these aspects and even though it has been proven in numerous instances that machine translation cannot compare to human translation, there exists what is called Translation Memory, which combines the human touch with machine power to simplify the translator’s work.

How the POEditor Translation Memory works

Each time a user translates a term, the translation gets stored immediately in the TM database. The TM database stores one translation per user for each term, which gets updated each time the user edits it in the interface. In case different users add different translations for the same term, they all get stored in the Translation Memory database. If there is more than one translation variant for a term in the Translation Memory, the TM will generate a list of suggestion, so the users can select the most appropriate one. The TM will always list the translations according to how many times they were used.

How to use the Translation Memory with the POEditor localization platform

There are two ways in which translators can use the Translation Memory System: either in the language page, using the TM Suggestions, or by going to the Translation Memory page (look for the Translation Memory button in the side menu of the language page), where you can bulk load translations from the TM database.

Using Translation Memory Suggestions

For TM Suggestion to be displayed in the language pages of a POEditor localization project, they need to be activated in Account Settings by the project owner.

After switching on the TM suggestions, all the contributors will be able to see them under the empty translation fields, if any appropriate results are found in the database. Clicking the “Use” button next to a suggestion will copy it to the translation field.

If the contributor has a Reference Language set, the Translation Memory will also search through the database for translations done in that language to propose TM suggestions.

Bulk loading translations from the Translation Memory database

Pressing the Translation Memory button in the side menu of the language page, you will be taken to the Translation Memory page. Press “Start searching”, and the system will start looking in the database for translations relevant to the untranslated terms. When it’s done, you will get a list with all the terms and the translations found in the TM database. You will be able to choose the variant that you find appropriate, if there are more than one, or to choose to completely ignore the translation(s) found for a particular term. By default, all the translations the TM finds are pre-selected, so you can easily load them in bulk in the language page by pressing “Use translations”.

Translation Memory Privacy

Each paid account has its own Translation Memory database. Because we take privacy seriously, you have to expressly grant your contributors or admins access to the Translation Memory, by going to Account Settings and switching Translation Memory Access to YES. Also, if you want people working on your software localization project to see the suggestions from the Translation Memory database, you will have to switch TM Suggestions to ON.

All the translations made for a localization project by a contributor belong both to the contributor and to the project owner, and are stored in both their Translation Memory databases, if they both have paid accounts.

How to set a payer for your POEditor account

Most of the time, the roles in a software localization workflow are very specialized, divided according to specific activities and tasks. Our experience with the localization industry has revealed that it’s not rare for companies to contact an agency to manage their software localization process. So they outsource it, but does the same apply for the payment for the localization services? Sometimes, even if a company does use an in-house localization team, the payment for the localization tools used in the translation process will still be managed by an Accounting Department. As you can see, the person with strings may not also be the one with the money.

So, to make sure the translation workflow suffers no disruption, we’ve come up with a payment management system that makes life easy for the person in charge of the financial aspect of the localization process.

How the Alternative Payer System Works

Our payment system was built with a simple premise in mind: the owner of a project managed with the localization platform POEditor may not be the same with the person handling the credit card that should be charged for that project. This is why a POEditor account owner can assign someone else to pay for his/her subscription. That person will have to be a POEditor user, and to explicitly accept this role. The alternative payer’s Billing section will have to be filled with the right billing details, and all the payments that will be made using them will have corresponding invoices sent to the alternative payer’s account.

How to Invite an Alternative Payer

To add an alternative payer to your POEditor account, just go to your Billing section and click on the link above My Billing Info that says “Invite Alternative Payer”.

An email will be sent to the specified email address to notify about the invitation. To accept it, the person will have to go to the Billing section in his/her POEditor account and confirm the role from there. A POEditor user can (simultaneously) become an alternative payer for as many POEditor accounts as desired, and has the freedom to quit the alternative payer role at any time.

Localization managers, account managers, translation leads and so forth, rest assured! We never stop thinking about you and we’ve got your back on this. If you have suggestions about how we could make the translation interface more flexible for your specific needs, don’t be shy to send us your thoughts by using the contact form or by commenting below.

How the Realtime Translation System helps l10n teams

At POEditor, we are dedicated to bringing you the best interface where you can manage your collaborative translation work. We know it is essential for any localization project manager or translator to stay updated with their team’s whereabouts and actions, in order to maintain a smooth and natural workflow. So, to avoid stepping on each other’s toes, we’ve built POEditor with a Realtime Translation System.

The POEditor Realtime Translation System is good for all POEditor users, regardless of their role in a project. First of all, it is useful for contributors, because they can see who is active on the same language as they are, at the same moment. It also shows them in real time if a translation is added, edited or deleted for a term in that language. If there is more than one person translating on the same page, the system will mark the translation fields that are being worked on by coloring their borders. If two or more contributors are on a translation field at the same time, a bubble will inform them who else is translating that term.

On an owner and administrator level, there are some extra benefits. At the bottom of the Project Page, a Live Activity box will appear, if at least one person is connected to the project. If they perform any actions (add/delete translation), those will also be streamed. Here’s what it looks like:

The POEditor Realtime Translation System has been well improved to give even more useful information to localization teams in their efforts to provide quality software translations. Unwanted events, like translating a string twice, for example, can easily be avoided with it.

In case you have feedback that you would like to share with us, don’t hesitate to drop us a comment or to use our contact form to get in touch.

Happy localization!

How to use Webhooks to automate the sync with GitHub/Bitbucket

Lately, some users have been asking for a way to automate the synchronization between the POEditor localization platform and GitHub/Bitbucket repositories. Because we want to make them happy, we found a way to do this – webhooks. These “user-defined HTTP callbacks” can be used to trigger a certain sync in your repos. They can be called from anywhere, and can be maintained, modified and managed by any third-party users.

Preparing the webhook

To make use of a webhook, you first need to create a webhook URL. Find an example for GitHub here, and one for Bitbucket here.

After creating the webhook, you can add it to a GitHub or Bitbucket account so that events in the repos trigger terms (and translations) updates in a POEditor project.

Using webhooks with Bitbucket

To add a webhook to a Bitbucket account, just log on to it, go to Settings → Hooks, and select “POST” from the “Select a hook” dropdown menu. Then click on “Add hook” and introduce the webhook URL in the empty field. Whenever the repository changes, the webhook will be triggered to sync between the assigned language/project on POEditor and the file in the repo.

Using webhooks with Github

Adding a webhook to GitHub is also easy. Go to the account, click on Settings → Webhooks & Services → Add webhook, and add the webhook URL to the “Payload URL” field. Unlike in the case of Bitbucket webhooks, you can pick what kind of event(s) you want to trigger the webhook. It can be just the push event, individual events, or everything (any change in the repo).

So that’s that. The POEditor GitHub integration and Bitbucket integration are now faster than ever, because you have the choice to automatically send the updates in the repos to your localization projects managed on POEditor.

Update July 2015: It is now possible to use webhooks to export terms and translations from your POEditor localization project to your connected GitHub account. Please note that the export option can be triggered from anywhere, except GitHub.