
.. _autoterm:

Automatic Terminology Assistance
********************************

.. versionadded:: 0.5

Virtaal can provide terminology help in many ways. One of the most powerful
ways is where Virtaal downloads a recommended file of localisation terms for
your language.

This powerful feature has many benefits:

- This works without any configuration. As long as the autoterm plugin is
  enabled, this works (it is enabled by default).
- Inexperienced translators will get terminology configured, even if they don't
  know that they should be doing something like this.
- Since the terminology is not packaged with Virtaal, teams can maintain their
  terminology, and don't need to "have it ready" for a Virtaal release.
- Since Virtaal will check every few days for new versions of the file,
  translators can use up to date terminology, without having to even know that
  maintenance was done on the list.
- The file can be maintained at any URL -- no intervention by the Virtaal
  community is required.

For example, a PO file from our Pootle server can work well -- this way the
same terms are also recommended in Pootle. We need the experts in software
localisation in each language to recommend which URL should be used for their
language. Contact us if this is not yet configured for your language.

All file formats supported by Virtaal can be used.
