Ubuntu – How to host a project on Launchpad

Look in my bookjar project: http://code.google.com/p/bookjar/source/browse/

specifically the debian directory (especially the debian/package.sh file) and the build.xml (ant) file. In that file there is a new target 'upload' that uploads a buildable artefact to the launchpad buildbot.

I'm using ivy and the netbeans ant infrastructure so it's likely to be slightly different for you. However, one thing is certain: you can't use ivy or maven from the remote buildserver. You need to upload all libraries you use, either in the form of code or jars. ivy:retrive downloads the files to the current_dir/lib so my project in netbeans is setup to look for it's libraries there (nblibraries.properties is part of the netbeans infrastructure for that). Read the build.xml for details (basically the debian/rules files call a special ant target to build in the server that doesn't try to symlink the jar files - because they are already copied there).

I'm also taking advantage in my package.sh of my project being in mercurial to build a changelog file from the hg log, so there are other problems to solve if you want the same degree of automatism and don't use hg (in fact, i think that my changelog is bending the rules of debian changelogs by having each change be a 'minor' release).

Short answer: Yes, Launchpad can be used to manage translations for a project on github.

You can test launchpad's features with Launchpad Staging.

• Register your project on Launchpad. (Instructions can be found here.)
• Set up Launchpad to automatically import from Github. (Launchpad help page)
  Use https://launchpad.net/PROJECT/trunk/+setbranch to set up Launchpad to import automatically from Github.
• Set up translations. (Launchpad help page)
  Use https://translations.launchpad.net/PROJECT/trunk/+translations-settings to select what is to be imported. Translation templates alone, or along with existing translation files, can be imported.

How things work?

• You push to github repo you set as source in step 2.
• Launchpad periodically checks, and updates the bzr repository.
• It then scans for any .pot or .po files, and adds them to the translations import queue.
• After a short while, the strings appear as 'Needs translation' and can be translated like anything else on launchpad.

What about pushing back to Github?

Sorry, but I don't think Launchpad is capable of that. However, LP can be set up to commit the translation files to a bzr branch on LP. It also allows you to manually download the translation files. These options can be found in the translation settings page.