PODEBCONF-DISPLAY-PO(1) 	  po-debconf	       PODEBCONF-DISPLAY-PO(1)



NAME
       podebconf-display-po - display content of a PO file in a debconf
       interface

SYNOPSIS
       podebconf-display-po [-h] [-f FRONTEND] file.po

DESCRIPTION
       As with any other localization work, translators should test their
       translations by running the program they are working on.  But this is a
       very hard job with complicated configuration scripts because there is
       no automatic way to have all messages displayed.

       The podebconf-display-po program could be called the Poor Man
       Localization Checker for debconf.  It parses a PO file, tries to guess
       what the original templates file did look like, and displays messages
       in a debconf interface.

       Of course being root is not mandatory, and there is no interaction
       between podebconf-display-po and system-wide debconf settings.

OPTIONS
       -h, --help
	   Display a usage summary and exit.

       -f, --frontend=FRONTEND
	   Select an alternate debconf frontend.

CAVEATS
	  As podebconf-display-po relies on "debconf" to display questions,
	   your environment must be setup to display localized questions in
	   the language of the PO file.  If you want to check a translation in
	   another language, you need to temporarily change your settings,
	   e.g.

	     $ LANGUAGE=de podebconf-display-po de.po

	   If the PO file cannot be converted into your current encoding,
	   English strings are displayed instead of the localized ones.  You
	   then have to switch to a UTF-8 environment to prevent encoding
	   mismatch.

	  Prior to 0.8.3, "po-debconf" did only insert the field name in PO
	   files.  But some discussions on mailing-lists showed that text
	   format does depend on template type, e.g. string and boolean types
	   are different because the former is an open question and user has
	   to enter some text input, whereas the latter is basically a Yes/No
	   question.  Authors have to think about it when writing their
	   templates files, but translators also have to be aware.

	   This is achieved when PO files are generated by po-debconf >=
	   0.8.3, template type is inserted in PO files.  With older versions,
	   podebconf-display-po has a trivial algorithm to determine original
	   template type, and may sometimes be wrong.

	  The "dialog" frontend, when based upon "whiptail", traps system
	   signals and thus podebconf-display-po cannot be interrupted by
	   "Ctrl-C" when using this frontend.

SEE ALSO
       debconf(1)

AUTHOR
	 Denis Barbier 



				  2008-06-13	       PODEBCONF-DISPLAY-PO(1)