
=head1 NAME

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

=head1 SYNOPSIS

B<podebconf-display-po>
[B<-h>]
[B<-f> I<FRONTEND>]
I<file.po>

=head1 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 B<podebconf-display-po> program could be called the
I<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 B<podebconf-display-po> and system-wide debconf settings.

=head1 OPTIONS

=over 4

=item B<-h>, B<--help>

Display a usage summary and exit.

=item B<-f>, B<--frontend=I<FRONTEND>>

Select an alternate debconf frontend.

=back

=head1 CAVEATS

=over 4

=item

As B<podebconf-display-po> relies on C<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.

=item

Prior to 0.8.3, C<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 E<gt>= 0.8.3,
template type is inserted in PO files.  With older versions,
B<podebconf-display-po> has a trivial algorithm to determine original
template type, and may sometimes be wrong.

=item

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

=back

=head1 SEE ALSO

L<debconf(1)>

=head1 AUTHOR

  Denis Barbier <barbier@linuxfr.org>

