Localizing Helm Documentation
This guide explains how to localize the Helm documentation.
Getting Started
Contributions for translations use the same process as contributions for documentation. Translations are supplied through pull requests to the helm-www git repository and pull requests are reviewed by the team that manages the website.
Two-letter Language Code
Documentation is organized by the
ISO 639-1 standard for the language codes. For example, the two-letter code for Korean is ko
.
In content and configuration you will find the language code in use. Here are 3 examples:
- In the
content
directory the language codes are the subdirectories and the localized content for the language is in each directory. Primarily in thedocs
subdirectory of each language code directory. - The
i18n
directory contains a configuration file for each language with phrases used on the website. The files are named with the patter[LANG].toml
where[LANG]
is the two letter language code. - In the top level
config.toml
file there is configuration for navigation and other details organized by language code.
English, with a language code of en
, is the default language and source for translations.
Fork, Branch, Change, Pull Request
To contribute translations start by creating a fork of the helm-www repository on GitHub. You will start by committing the changes to your fork.
By default your fork will be set to work on the default branch known as master. Please use branches to develop your changes and create pull requests. If you are unfamiliar with branches you can read about them in the GitHub documentation.
Once you have a branch make changes to add translations and localize the content to a language.
Note, Helm uses a
Developers Certificate of Origin. All commits need to have signoff. When making a commit you can use the -s
or --signoff
flag to use your Git configured name and email address to signoff on the commit. More details are available in the
CONTRIBUTING.md file
When you are ready, create a pull request with the translation back to the helm-www repository.
Once a pull request has been created one of the maintainers will review it. Details on that process are in the CONTRIBUTING.md file.
Translating Content
Localizing all of the Helm content is a large task. It is ok to start small. The translations can be expanded over time.
Starting A New Language
When starting a new language there is a minimum needed. This includes:
- Adding a
content/[LANG]/docs
directory containing an_index.md
file. This is the top level documentation landing page. - Creating a
[LANG].toml
file in thei18n
directory. Initially you can copy theen.toml
file as a starting point. - Adding a section for the language to the
config.toml
file to expose the new language. An existing language section can serve as a starting point.
Translating
Translated content needs to reside in the content/[LANG]/docs
directory. It should have the same URL as the English source. For example, to translate the intro into Korean it can be useful to copy the english source like:
mkdir -p content/ko/docs/intro
cp content/en/docs/intro/install.md content/ko/docs/intro/install.md
The content in the new file can then be translated into the other language.
Note, translation tools can help with the process. This includes machine generated translations. Machine generated translations should be edited or otherwise reviewing for grammar and meaning by a native language speaker before publishing.