I want to help translate Netvibes, what do I need to do ?

To translate Netvibes in your language, you must be registered as Netvibes User (if you are a new user, learn how to sign up here ). In addition, you need a translator account to access our translation site. Contact us to ask for one. You should get an answer within 48 hours.

Once you received the confirmation e-mail, login to http://translate.netvibes.com/translate then select the language for which you got an access. You are now ready to translate Netvibes from English to your language.

What about the skills required for translating ?

Successfully translating strings from English to another language requires that you are absolutely fluent in that language, therefore it’s mandatory to be a native speaker. But it’s not enough. Because we use it as our source language, you need to have an excellent level in English as well. You also need to be very familiar with the internet world, and its particular jargon. If you have never heard of terms like RSS feed or widget, you may encouter some serious trouble while trying to translate Netvibes. Even if you are aware of these terms, the actual translation in your language may be sometimes a pretty tough task. Last but not least, you need to have a good picture of Netvibes’ features, where to find them and how to use them.

To help you find the best words, our glossary contains the most common terms and specific expressions used in Netvibes. Please read it carefully to get familiar with Netvibes’ key features.

Do I need technical skills or HTML knowledge?

No. But you may encouter some small bits of HTML code in our strings here and there. Simply copy/paste them onto your translated string and you’ll be fine.

Ok, I have my account and I am ready to rock. How to translate then?

Once you are logged in to http://translate.netvibes.com/translate you will gain access to a list of all languages open for translation.

Next to each language you will find the following information:

• Todo: number of strings that are still not translated
• Progress: percentage of completion of the language
• Last modification: last time and hour when a string has been translated or modified
• By: latest translator who made the modification

If you hover a language name, a "Discuss" link will appear to let you access the related forum.

After entering your language page, you will notice that strings are organized into 3 sections:

• core: strings used for Netvibes’ interface and widgets
• eco: strings used in the Ecosystem site and other related pages (Netvibes Buzz...)
• translate: strings used in the Translation site interface.

Click on the section of your choice to display the related strings. Strings are ordered by ID number: the lowest ID number is the oldest string, whereas the newests strings are found in the last pages of the section.

To quickly access the latests strings available for translation, click on the green button "Display only messages not translated".

The original English string is displayed in the "Message" column. To translate a string, simply click on the "Translation" cell and type your message. When finished, click outside the cell to save the text. You’re done!

What is that "Notes" column?

The "Notes" column provides comments, info on context or warnings for strings that need some explanation. Please have a look at it before translating the message.

How can I search for specific terms?

A search field is available at the top-right corner of the language page. You can either search in original messages or in the translated versions. It’s very useful if you want to find a string that you have translated a long time ago, or if you want to know all the occurrences of a specific term. It’s also a good way to verify translation consistency of a single term over different translators

Note: the search applies only to the section it belongs to. If you made a search while you are on the "Core" section, you will get differents results from a search applied in the "eco" section.

What are the substitution variables and how to use them?

Variables are placeholders that will be substituted with values once the translated message is online.

e.g.: Step {0} out of {1}
here, this may be displayed online as "Step 1 out of 3", "Step 2 out of 3" etc...

Variables can be numerical or alphabetical

e.g.: First mentioned by {name}, {timeago}
may be displayed online as "First mentioned by John Doe, 2 hours ago"

Variables must not be translated, they must be used without any modification and strictly copy/pasted.

However, you are free to change the variable placement inside the message to adapt to the sentence structure and word order of your language.

Example: see below how the variable {fullname} is used in English a the beginning of the message, while in Spanish it is used in the end:

Warning: In RTL languages, when you copy/paste a variable from the original message (left column) to the translated message (right column), the way the variable is displayed may be reversed if the variable is in the form "%x". If (and only if) this is the case, do not change this, otherwise the variable won’t be able to substitue the correct message when online.

ex: Arabic

• Correct display
• Bad display

When can I see my translation online?

When you finished translating your strings, the files are saved on our server and will be published online with the next translation update. It means that your work won't appear online immediately, it will appear only after we manually make the update. The frequency of theses updates can vary from one to 2 or 3 times a week, depending on our activity and our features release schedule.

To know when the latest update happened and/or when the next one is sheduled approximately, a quick info field is displayed at the top of the translation page at http://translate.netvibes.com/translate. You can also add the NV Translate widget to your page or add NV translate universe to your contacts so this info will be displayed in your Friends Activities.

What happens if I don't see my translation online?

Firstly, please be patient :) If your translation have not appeared on Netvibes after some days, it only means that we haven't updated the translation files yet. However, if after 2 weeks, your language appears to still not having been updated, please contact us to report this issue. Another explanation is that maybe you need to reset your browser's cache (see our FAQ).

Is there a way to see the default page of my country with my language of choice without going to Netvibes settings everytime?

Yes. You can use special URLs with locale and language parameters to see what the netvibes default page of your country currently looks like.

The url is in the form:
http://www.netvibes.com?locale=xx&lang=zz_XX&reset=1

Replace the codes as follow:

• locale=xx where xx is the 2-letters country code as identified by the ISO_3166-1 standard (countries list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2)


• lang=zz_XX where zz is the 2-or 3-lettters language code as idientified by the ISO_639 standard (languages list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_639)

Example: to see Netvibes default page in Germany, with German language, first log out from your Netvibes session, then type this url:
http://www.netvibes.com?locale=de&lang=de_DE&reset=1

Note: For some locales, Netvibes doesn't use standard codes. Ex: French Belgium (Wallonia): bef
http://www.netvibes.com?locale=bef&lang=fr_FR&reset=1

My language has been updated but the strings appearing online have a different translation than the one I made, Why?

It means that another translator have changed the strings you have translated, either to fix a syntax error, a typo, or because he found out that the translation could be improved. If he had done so, he certainly have a good reason to do so, however, if you are not satisfied with the new translation, simply discuss this topic on the forum related to this language. The later can be used to discuss how to enhance the translation in question.

I saw a string badly translated, how can i change it?

Simply click on the "Translation" cell and you can edit the string as usual. Of course, you will have to do that only if you think that the previous translator has made an obvious error (typo, forgot a letter, punctuation issue...) or mistranslation. If this error or mistranslation impacts more than one string, or if this error is more related to the actual meaning of the words and expressions, then it may be helpful to use the forum to discuss this particular point.

I have finished translating some strings, how can I preview my work?

Currently, there is no possibility to preview your translation before it goes online on Netvibes. It means that you will have to wait for the next translation update before viewing your work online in context. Of course, when viewing the translation in context, you may quickly find that some of your translations may need some refining, which could not have been anticipated before previewing it. Therefore, feel free to edit again the strings until you feel confident that the translation is ok. Your re-edited strings should appear online after the next translation update.

I am not sure about a particular translation. Where can I find some help?

Use the "Discuss" link next to a language name to go to the related forum. There, you can start a new topic or have a look at the existing ones. You can also head to the General Forum and look for info and advice there.

How can I be noticed of new strings available for translation?

Connect to the Translation site: latest updates are displayed at the top of the page.

You can also add the NV translate widget to your page or susbscribe to NVtranslate activity feed (to do so, add NVtranslate as a friend). This way, you will receive short messages directly on your Netvibes page when we add new string or when we update translation files.

The translation in my language is inconsistent. The same term is translated in differents ways

Translation is a collaborative work, therefore it may be difficult to maintain consistency if each translator gives their own version of a particular translation. To avoid this, please have a look at the Glossary to know what are the current translation for the most common terms, expressions and specific features used in Netvibes. If you are not satisfied with this translation or if you have concerns with the translation of other items, discuss it in the forums. It’s the best way to expose the issues or ask for help from fellow translators.

I want to translate for another language, how can I do that?

Simply ask for the language you are interested in translating using our feedback form and we’ll give you access to additional languages. Please only ask if you are sure you have the required skills.

How can I report issues?

If the issue is related to the translated version, please discuss it with fellow translators using the forum.

If you notice errors or typos in the source version (the English message), please report it either on the forum or using the feedback form and our team will have a look at it. Because of the way our system works, we will need to create a new string with a new ID number then erase the oldest one.

Do you provide .po or .pot files so I can edit the files offline?

Not at the moment. The feature exists but is not fully supported and is currently in testing phase.

What tools can I use to ease my work?

Despite great technological progress over the last few years, online translators (like Google Translate or Altavista BabelFish) should never be used as a primary tool for translation. Sure, they can help sometimes but should be used with extreme care and only if you have already ideas about how the good translation of a word should be. As advanced as a translation software is, it won’t be able to play with the subtleties of each expression, especially in their context.

This said, there is a great variety of tools available out there that can help you provide a quality translation (dictionaries, terminology databases, firefox extensions...). Some of them have been discussed in this topic. Don’t hesitate to recommend other tools!