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 either linked from or copied to other wikis. This page provides information about this process, which is referred to as localization.

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

Another document that should be localized (but with a lower priority) is the Why VisualEditor? — the story and rationale behind the development of 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 and easily update them.

Copying documents to other wikis
Instead of copying the documents to other wikis, you may want to just use (soft) redirects so users can read and update the page on MediaWiki. This will help make sure that the documentation stays current.

If you want to, though, it's easy to copy the documents over once the translation is complete. 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. If you do this, please encourage editors who make changes to the documentation on your local wiki to update it on mediawiki.org as well.


 * Note: If you want to copy the English version to an English-language wiki, copy the content that appears in the wikitext editor on the /en subpage, rather than the parent page. This will automatically remove all the complex markup used to configure translation. For example, copy the contents of https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=Help:VisualEditor/User_guide/en&action=edit to export the user guide in English. See this section for step-by-step instructions.

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.