What there is to translate
Two kinds of texts, kept apart so you can pick what you like:
- the app: buttons, menus, messages and help (a few thousand short texts);
- the rules: names and descriptions of species, classes, spells, items and the rest of the SRD 5.1. For Italian, French, German and Spanish the official translations of the SRD are already in; what is missing is welcome, and so is any correction.
A text with no translation in your language shows in English, so a language can grow little by little. Nothing has to be finished at once.
Open the project
Heroquill is on Weblate, a free site for translating together. Open the project from the Contribute page, make an account on the site (or sign in, if you have one), choose your language and then what to translate. If your language is not in the list, ask for it with the Start new translation button, or tell us in the Discussions on GitHub.
Translate a text
Weblate shows the English text, a box for yours, and, on the side, the other languages and similar texts you already translated. Type the translation, save it and the next one comes up. You can also look at the list of texts still missing and start from there.
Keep what is inside curly braces
Some texts contain words in braces, like {name} or {count}. They are filled in by the app (a name, a number): copy them exactly as they are, and move them where your language needs them. Weblate warns you if one is missing or changed.
Keep it simple and consistent
- Use the same word for the same thing everywhere: Weblate offers a glossary and shows how you translated a word before.
- Write as the official rulebooks of your language do, for the names of spells, classes and the like.
- Short texts stay short: they have to fit on a button or a phone screen.
- When a text is unclear, look for where it is used (Weblate shows the key and often a note) or ask in the Discussions.
What happens next
Weblate sends your work to the project on GitHub as a proposed change, which the author reads and merges. It reaches everyone with the next version of the app, and the News page lists it. You never have to touch the code.
Licence
Your translations are released under the same licence as the texts they translate: the interface texts under the MIT licence of the project, the rules under CC-BY-4.0, the licence of the SRD 5.1. By translating you agree to that.