A while back I was interviewed by Leonardo Fontenelle (An active Free Software l10n contributor from Brazil), it is worth mentioning here. There, I described many aspects of our work in Arabic translation and Arabeyes. Here I quote some passages:

On the open nature of the translation process:

I guess I don’t like some particular phase per see, but all in all, I very much adore the open nature of it. Right from the source code to the actual compiled message catalogues. You can’t really get much more open that this. This openness really pays off when translating weird messages, when trying to view translations live, when comparing with translations of other packages, when viewing translations of different languages, etc.

On the Technical Dictionary:

The technical dictionary is basically an English-Arabic dictionary for computing terms. At first, we started making it with .po files, but that created many problems with versioning and discussing the terms. So I had the idea of uploading the terms to our Wiki. I used some scripts to convert the .po files to Wiki xml input. The wiki, being open, allows people to edit as they see fit, discuss terms, suggest alternatives, etc. Then finally, there are some scripts that take the wiki pages and convert them back to .po files, as well as .pdf suitable for printing/reading. The experience was very rewarding to us.

On contributors:

Finally, minbar 0.2 is nearing release. What is left is just a bit of testing and translations.

First, if you would like to translate Minbar then now is the right time. Get this file and start translating, then send it back to djihed at gmail dot com.
Minbar.pot

For detailed instructions on translating, please see end of post.
Also, if you have the ability to package software for any distro (.rpm, .deb etc) than I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks to Yulian Ardiansyah, we now have a new shiny icon and logo:

And this is a screenshot of the new version, emphasis has been placed on elegance.

Amongst the features and the fixes of the new version are:

• A new Qibla direction feature.
• City selection using a database of cities.
• Ability to specify different Athan files for Subh and other times
• Ability to specify half hour GMT correction for countries like India
• Ability to start minimised.

As always, the code resides in Arabeyes CVS.

If you have never translated a .po for .pot file before, here is what you need to do:

• Download the file: Minbar.pot, right click and choose save.
• Install poedit: a software that helps you translate these files. You can either install it using your distribution’s repository (Linux) or you can download it: Download poedit.
• Open the file minbar.pot with poedit. Make sure to fill up both “settings” and “preferences”. For encoding, choose “UTF-8″.
• Translate the file. When you are done, save it and send it to my address: djihed at gmail dot com.

NOTE1: Minbar 0.2 has already been translated to Arabic, Indonesian, Spanish, French, Urdu (Pakistan), Turkish, Bosnian and Pashto.
NOTE2: Those wishing to translate it to Norweigian or Farsi can update the preexisting 0.1 translations: Norweigian: no.po , Farsi: fa.po