# HG changeset patch
# User Paul Boddie <paul@boddie.org.uk>
# Date 1446765395 -3600
# Node ID c030453cb40b2d52ba2a92be22827ebeef94342c
# Parent  6df45ddd56d115dafb6e3854c40064879ab776f1
Added a localisation section to the development guide.

diff -r 6df45ddd56d1 -r c030453cb40b docs/wiki/Developing
--- a/docs/wiki/Developing	Fri Nov 06 00:00:55 2015 +0100
+++ b/docs/wiki/Developing	Fri Nov 06 00:16:35 2015 +0100
@@ -155,3 +155,49 @@
 particularly as each user's data should remain isolated from that of
 other users, and thus the volumes of data should remain relatively small
 if managed well enough.
+
+== Localisation ==
+
+The traditional [[https://www.gnu.org/s/gettext|gettext]] mechanisms for
+translating labels, messages and other user-readable strings are employed
+in the imip-agent code. Some tools have been provided to maintain this
+localisation.
+
+To extract "messages" from the code, run the `tools/i18n_messages.sh`
+script:
+
+{{{
+tools/i18n_messages.sh
+}}}
+
+This produces a file called `imip-agent.pot` in the current directory,
+and it also attempts to merge any new messages into the existing message
+translations found in the `messages` directory. Such translation files
+have the following form:
+
+{{{
+messages/xx_XX.imip-agent.po
+}}}
+
+Here, `xx` is usually an [[WikiPedia:ISO_639-1|ISO 639-1]] language code,
+whereas `XX` is usually an [[WikiPedia:ISO_3166-1|ISO 3166-1]] country code.
+
+Translators should inspect and edit their files in the `messages`
+directory and then use the `tools/i18n_format.sh` script to generate the
+translations that the software will use:
+
+{{{
+tools/i18n_format.sh
+}}}
+
+This installs the "compiled" translations into the `locale` directory in
+a location of the following form:
+
+{{{
+locale/xx_XX/LC_MESSAGES/imip-agent.mo
+}}}
+
+The `tools/install.sh` script will copy the `locale` directory into the
+installation location unless the `--no-locale-dir` option is given. This is
+provided to allow any centrally-installed translations to take precedence
+over any locally-available translations.