When I run k3b in Slackware 14 with a french locale, the application appears in English and I cannot change the language to french.

After some research, it seems that the translation files (*.mo) for k3b are not present in the package kde-l10n-fr-4.8.5-noarch-1 (and probably for other languages too).

To resolve this problem, I downloaded the po files from the SVN server of the KDE project (under the directory extragear-multimedia). I generated the mo files from these po files with the msgfmt command and installed them in the directory /usr/share/locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES.

This solution is a quick hack. I think these mo files should be included in the various kde-l10n packages (and possibly other mo files from the extragear-* directories).

The po/mo files for French were not included by upstream KDEI packagers in 4.8.5, that's why they are not included in the Slackware package for the same KDEI version.

OK. I thought that the source package was build by the slackware team from the KDE svn/git server.

Sadly that gives a sense of "unfinished" product...

No. Slackware tries as much as possible to build its packages from officially released source tarballs and avoid modifying it unless actually needed, mainly for security concerns. Stability and security come at a price.

But don't worry, IIRC the KDE version shipped in Slackware-current includes localization in French.

Hmmm ! It doesn't seem to be the case in the latest update for KDE 4.10.3...

The KDE team doesn't provides the translation files for k3b in the official package because k3b is not a "core" application of the desktop (see http://www.kde.org/info/4.10.3.php).

But slackware provide a package for k3b build by the same script for all the KDE packages.
So, shouldn't we also provide the translation files for it (and possibly other "extra" applications) ?

There is a trick in the slackbuild for KDEI in order to include some translations for a previous version of KDE PIM (if I understand well).
Something similar could be done for those "extra" packages...

I was plain wrong.

Of course there is no po file for k3b, neither in kde-l10n-fr-4.10.2 nor in /k3b-2.0.2_20120226.git shipped in Slackware-current.

In fact my memory didn't serve me well that time. Your question reminded me of a similar one I answered on LQ but that I couldn't find at first. It's this one.

But Amarok is not k3b!

I investigated a bit more and with the help of http://packages.slackware.com/ saw that there *was* a k3b-i18n package in slackware, but that was not shipped after Slackware-12.2

So yes I think you're right, this looks like a packaging problem on Slackware's side, as upstream source do include a po/ directory

Maybe there is a reason for omitting it, but in any case I'll drop a line about that to Pat, just in case he doesn't read this thread.

Oh and you didn't need to pull the sources from git, there is a tarball (but may be you did that because the source tarball for k3b in Slackware is pulled from git as well.)

BTW, I wrote that Slackware usually package released versions and actually that's not the case for k3b. Well, as the saying goes: exceptio probat regulam

I saw the thread concerning Amarok and like you say it's different because the source tarball for Amarok includes the translation files (but not the french translations for the 2.6.0 version).

Thanks for dropping a line to Pat. I mark this thread as solved.