Hey everyone,

As some of you may know, we've been using our Weblate self-hosted instance for the translation of Budgie Desktop with some resounding success. Budgie is now offered fully translated in almost 30 languages, with many nearing completion!

Late last week, we made available the ability to translate Brisk Menu, our distro-agnostic menu implementation for the MATE Desktop, and we'd love if our community (and the broader MATE community as a whole) could pull together to give it the same treatment.

Below are the why's, how's, what's, who's, where's, when's (okay, maybe not all of those) on getting involved if you're interested!

Why?

Translating software (whether it's developed by Solus or not) makes it more accessible / approachable to a wider audience that could have otherwise been intimidated by seeing terminology and phrases in a language they may not understand.

Where?

Translations occur on our Weblate instance.

How?

The first step is to click on the page and sign up! After that, you have the ability to suggest translations for Budgie Desktop and Brisk Menu (these appear in Budgie Desktop -> translations and Brisk Menu -> brisk-menu-translations respectively). Suggested translations do not get automatically added / accepted, but rather that is done by individuals listed in the "Who?" section.

If you do not see your language listed (which may likely be the case for Brisk Menu), you can either ping me here by doing @JoshStrobl then your message, ping me @JoshStrobl on Twitter / @JoshStrobl on mastodon.cloud (in case you're seeing this as a result of the Solus social media accounts), or preferably ping me on on our development IRC channel.

When translations are accepted, they are automatically pushed to the the respective translations git repository, where they can be utilized as a git submodule for the project (Budgie Desktop or Brisk Menu, depending on the translations git repo).

Who?

Anybody can suggest translations on an existing language so long as they are a registered user on our weblate install. Accepting a suggested translation, essentially validating its accuracy (or that it remains relatively true to the source translations / phrasing), is done by one or both of the following:

An administrator of Weblate (such as myself or @DataDrake) A member of the respective translator group / team (if there is one for your group). As an example, French Translations can be accepted by @kyrios.

If you aren't sure that your language has a translator team (such as it being a newly created language on our Weblate) or if your translations are not being accepted / responded to in a timely manner (please remember we're all volunteers), reach out to via the details in the "How?" section and I can take a look as soon as possible!

If you are already a member of a translator team, you will be able to begin translating Brisk Menu directly once your language is added.

Questions?

Don't hesitate to ask!