VisualEditor/Portal/Localization

VisualEditor represents a major change for editors of Wikimedia wikis. In order to facilitate the transition to VisualEditor, a lot of documentation has been prepared that can be translated, adapted and copied to other wikis. This page provides information about this localization process.

Documents
Many documents exist, but those are the ones that should be localized in priority:
 * 1) VisualEditor user guide — Extensive documentation about how to use VisualEditor, with many screenshots
 * 2) VisualEditor — A portal page that explains what VisualEditor is and links to other resources
 * 3) VisualEditor FAQ — Questions that are frequently asked about VisualEditor.
 * 4) TemplateData documentation and tutorial — Information about how to add metadata to templates so that it's easier to edit them using VisualEditor

Other documents that should be localized (but with a lower priority) include:
 * Why VisualEditor? — The story and rationale behind the development of VisualEditor
 * Help with VisualEditor — Proposed tasks that you can help with to facilitate the transition to VisualEditor
 * User stories — Result of testing sessions with users to compare the classic editor and VisualEditor.

Translating documents
Translation is done using the Translate extension. On the pages that are ready for translation, you should see a link to "Translate this page" at the top, which will lead you to the Translation interface. If you've never used the Translation interface, take a look at the Translation example page for guidance.

Please note that some of the documentation was released into the public domain, to facilitate its use and dissemination across wikis. By translating those documents, you agree to release your translations into the public domain as well.

Please translate the documents on mediawiki.org before copying them to your wiki, so that users who speak the same language can reuse them.

Copying documents to other wikis
Once a document has been translated, you can copy it to another wiki with a simple copy/paste. Open the translation (for example Help:VisualEditor/FAQ/fr) and click the "Edit source" tab. Then find the "Export" option at the top right of the screen. While you can't edit the content, you can still copy the wikitext, and paste it on your wiki.

It is a good idea to encourage editors who make changes to the documentation on your local wiki to update it on mediawiki.org as well, or to just use (soft) redirects and direct links to localised pages rather than local copies.

Note: If you want to copy the English version to an English-language wiki, copy the content that appears on the /en subpage, rather than the parent page. This will automatically remove all the complex markup used to configure translation. For example, if you want to copy the content of Help:VisualEditor/FAQ, copy it from Help:VisualEditor/FAQ/en instead.

Screenshots
Documents like the VisualEditor user guide contain a lot of images. While most of the page can be understood with the default images in English, some images should really be updated to show the interface in your language.

Most of the images can be changed through the Translation interface. If it isn't changed, the default image in English will be shown.

Taking screenshots and uploading them to Commons can be time-consuming, so translators should make sure that the text of the page is translated first.

It is recommended to use high zoom in your web browser when taking screenshots of the interface. VisualEditor uses SVG images for its interface, which means they still look sharp at high zoom. For more tips on taking screenshots, see Help:Screenshots.