FileSender version 3.x, besides delivering the much-anticipated enhanced user interface (UI), also expanded the set of supported languages. Thanks to the translation contributors, FileSender UI is now available in 32 different languages. While English is the default language, National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) and other members of the wider FileSender community regularly provide new translations to support their domestic users in their local languages. This can be accomplished through the POEditor translation management platform – and each contribution makes FileSender more accessible and impactful globally.
FileSender is open source software to deliver a service for easy and secure transfer of large files through a trusted intermediary, often the NREN. The sender has full control over who receives and can access the files (through authentication of users) and for which period of time – as it should be. With privacy, data security and digital sovereignty high on the agenda of both organizations and individuals, the FileSender open source web application provides a secure, trustworthy and transparent way for sharing large files.
FileSender supports international character sets as well as bidirectional text flow. This ensures that languages using Cyrillic and Asian writing systems, alongside right-to-left scripts like Arabic, can be integrated into FileSender without undue effort. Here is the list of 32 languages, for which at least 75% of the required translation work was completed for FileSender version 3.x:
- Chinese (simplified) (zh-Hans)
- Chinese (traditional) (zh-Hant)
- Croatian (hr)
- Czech (cs)
- Danish (da)
- Dutch (nl)
- English (en)
- English (Australia) (en-au)
- Finnish (fi)
- French (fr)
- German (de)
- German (Austria) (de-at)
- Italian (it)
- Japanese (ja)
- Korean (ko)
- Latvian (lv)
- Nepali (ne)
- Norwegian (Bokmål) (no-nb)
- Norwegian (Nynorsk) (no-nn)
- Polish (pl)
- Portuguese (Brazil) (pt-br)
- Romanian (ro)
- Serbian (sr)
- Sinhalese (si)
- Slovenian (sl)
- Spanish (es)
- Tamil (ta)
- Thai (th)
- Turkish (tr)
- Ukrainian (uk)
- Urdu (ur)
- Vietnamese (vi)
Translations are contributed primarily for two reasons. First, having native languages available provides a better end-user experience; while many users may speak fluent English, the ability to navigate an interface in one’s mother tongue reduces stress and technical confusion. Second, FileSender makes localization easy, offering a smooth, low-cost process to create and integrate new language profiles through the POEditor translation platform. We are grateful to POEditor for providing their localization platform free of charge to open source projects!
“Bringing the Ukrainian language to FileSender was important to us. First, it is a matter of identity and dignity to see our native language in the software we use daily for our professional work. Second, Ukrainian localization is legally mandatory for software utilized by public/budgetary institutions. So, we contributed both to the R&E community and to the fulfilment of our legal requirements. We believe that every language deserves to be represented, and adding Ukrainian to FileSender 3.x was a step toward that. On the practical side, using POEditor was surprisingly easy and intuitive. It allowed us to stay synchronized and handle the translation efficiently without needing deep technical knowledge of the software's core”.
“We need to translate FileSender into Latvian because we plan to offer this service to our researchers within the framework of the National EOSC node. This localization ensures full compliance with Latvian law, which stipulates that publicly offered systems and services must be accessible in the national language. The translation process went smoothly using the POEditor platform; the translator provided mostly positive feedback. The only minor issue encountered was translating strings that contained HTML code, which can be tricky for non-IT staff. To manage this, we provided our translation expert with a brief overview of HTML basics to complete the task – and this approach worked well”.
“We use FileSender to securely transfer large files between locations for KDRS members, as sending USB flash drives and hard drives often led to lost or misplaced data. FileSender enables encrypted file exchanges and simplifies archive retrieval, streamlining this part of our members' daily workflow. I worked on the Norwegian translations for FileSender 3.x as an introductory task for my job at KDRS. It directly supports our internal teams and the multiple KDRS clients using the FileSender service, who are Norwegian. Translating FileSender into both variants of Norwegian that people learned to read and write in makes it significantly more accessible to users, ensuring a seamless experience”.
Step-by-step instructions to create a new translation for FileSender version 3.x
1) Check if the language already exists, either in a FileSender installation, GitHub, or POEditor.
2a) If it exists – great! Join the POEditor team using the public link to the FileSender 3.0 project and start translating. Your changes will be reviewed and once accepted, they will be added to the next release.
2b) If the language does not exist – contact the developers by either opening a new issue on GitHub or sending a message to the filesender-dev mailing list to get the language added. Then edit in POEditor.
3) Wait for your translations to be included in a new software release.
The POEditor platform has a user-friendly web interface to simplify the translation of software (like mobile and desktop apps, websites, and games) and to manage the localization files. You can also export the strings to work on translation off-line, in a spreadsheet if necessary; however, the finalized translations for FileSender ultimately need to be entered into POEditor.
Currently, FileSender version 3.x contains 943 strings to be translated; this varies per release. Facing the task of translating 943 strings may seem daunting, and you may be at a loss for where to start. To make it easier to get started, the most important FileSender strings have been marked in POEditor with a ‘start-here’ tag – so you can simply filter them and work more effectively. Don’t worry too much about achieving perfection before you can release: for every string you haven’t yet translated – the UI will fall back to the default English version.
As an open source project, we encourage owners of FileSender UI translations to make them publicly available. That way, other organisations (not necessarily restricted to the R&E community) can use them, which in turn grows the potential group of people who can contribute to the continued maintenance of your translation. If you have a FileSender translation that isn’t mentioned in the list shown above, or wish to create one, please join the FileSender translation effort. We would love to see your contribution!