INSTRUCTIONS FOR TRANSLATING ENTITIES
=====================================

It is possible to translate entities used in the installation guide.
Note that only a few entities are suitable for translation. Others, for
instance those refering to package names, should not be translated.

There are several reasons for using entities in the manual. One is to
improve consistency and to make it possible to maintain changing data in one
central location; another is to make it easier for derived distributions to
change the branding of the manual.
Given these goals the intention is to increase the use of entities. 

This also means that translators preferably should not replace entities by
fixed text. However, the standard set of entities may not be sufficient for
a good translation, for instance because a language needs different
conjugations for a word while in English this is not needed.

Translators are free to add additional entities if they need them for
different conjugations. Try to keep the names of the entities you add
logical. Examples:
xxx-dat (for dative conjugation)

If you feel some text in the English version of the manual could be replaced
by an entity, please send a mail to the debian-i18n list for discussion.

How to translate entities
=========================
- Look up the definition of the entity you want to translate in the relevant
  entity file (e.g. ../common.ent) and copy it.
- Add or edit a new file <your_language_code>.ent in this directory.
- Add the definition of the entity you want to translate in this file.
- Replace the English text in the entity with your translation. Do *not*
  change any xml tags included in the entity.

You can of course also copy the file for another language already in this
directory as a starting point.

Translatable entities
=====================
Please do not translate entities that are not listed below without discussing
this first on the debian-boot list!
Before the release of Etch, it is very unlikely that any new entities will be
added. The infrastructure is mostly being added now to allow a few minor
translations and to have it in place for the next release, Lenny.

- enterkey
- escapekey
- tabkey
- MSG-YES
- MSG-NO
- BTN-CONT
- BTN-CANCEL
- BTN-GOBACK

Some other entities can be localized as well.

- archive-mirror
  The default value is http.us.debian.org (see ../urls.ent). You can replace
  that by a closer mirror, but make sure that you only use a mirror that
  carries *all* architectures!
  Note that most mirrors are called _ftp_.<country>.debian.org.

Non-translatable entities
=========================
The entities below should _not_ be translated. If you think an entity listed
below is used in a way that it should be translated, this is possably a bug
that should be fixed in the original text rather than a reason to translate it.

- releasename
