General process

I18NEdit brings initial support for merging of localisation file sets maintained by different persons. This is done through the "Team" menu in the project window. Merging can be done by two means: either as integrator or as translator. The difference between the two ways is rather small but nevertheless important to understand. In the first place, the "integrator" is the one who has the complete project tree with all localisations on its system and provides the development team with the localisations for the product's build. A translator, in difference, is someone who only translates the properties of an already existing localisation (e.g. the default one) into another language. It's the same distinction as already described earlier. Normally, a project has only one integrator and at least one translator.

To provide something to merge for another translator or any other affiliate, simply copy the complete file tree over. It is important that the copy begins with the directory containing the main "i18nedit.properties" file and includes that file. Otherwise, merging will fail. Best idea is to use ZIP archives. In a later version, I18NEdit will directly support importing and exporting of projects into such archives.

Generally, you merge another one's I18NEdit projects by issuing the following steps:

• Open the project which shell be merged with something external. Note that all merging will be done in the real, local file tree.

• Select the "Team" menu in the project's menu bar. Go to either "Merge as integrator" or "Merge as translator", depending on which alternative fits your role.

• A dialog opens. Enter the location of the properties tree to be merged. As I18NEdit remembers both the position of the window and the last file tree location, you won't have to change the directory once you defined the directory.

• Check whether the selected locales are correct. If you are the integrator, you always have to select the locales the translator having sent his project tree to you is responsible for. As a translator, you have always selected all locales except of the one currently selected as translation target. Adjust this if you are responsible for more than one target localisation. Note that you are not obliged to leave your own locales out of the merging process. Normally it does not harm and if more than one person is working on the same target locale, it can even be mandatory to merge the own tree with changes in ones own target locale. See below for more details.

• Do a "Test merge". The merge will run and the log window in the dialog will show you what would have been merged.

• If the output of the test run looks sensible, press "Do merge". I18NEdit will merge the given merge source into your local tree. If everything runs correctly, you will have an appropriately updated file tree afterwards.