Q: Why do I need an account to view languages?
A: Because the viewing will eventually support you giving comments on the current translation. The account is needed to ease communication with you if one of the translators has questions regarding your suggestion.
When you are not interested in commenting and just viewing you can as easily take a look at the raw language files in OpenTTD's source code, for example at http://hg.openttd.org/openttd/trunk.hg/file/tip/src/lang/.

Q: How do I get an account for viewing languages?
A: If you already have an account for "bananas" you can use that. If you do not have an account yet your can create one easily by clicking on "Edit" or "Settings". You will end up at the login page. At this page there is a link to create a new account. Once the account has been made you can log in and view all languages.

Q: How do I become a translator?
Q: How do I get an account for editting languages?
A: First of all you need to have an account for viewing languages. After that you need to send an email to translator@openttd.org in which you state your user name and the language you would like to translate. We will then assign you to that language.

Q: Why does the "Next" button sometimes not bring me to the next string?
A: Most likely you are going to the "String Needing Validation" or the "Waiting For Commit Strings" lists. What happens in the former case is that another translator is busy fixing/reviewing strings. In the latter case the strings got committed and as a result the list is cleared.
Although it looks odd we have decided that we do not "fix" this issue as it does not occur often and it does not harm you much. Fixing this would mean we have to request more information which most of the time is totally unneeded, which makes it slower for everyone. If you encounter this problem simply change the list you are viewing or go to first page of the list. Both will request the number of strings and update accordingly.

Q: Why do you require Javascript?
A: Because with Javascript we can do asynchronious callbacks making the system lighter bandwidth wise and reducing the load on the server. This makes it react quicker. Also developing a Javascript-free version means that we would need to spend more time on the duplicate development of the translator tool, which means that you would have less features in both the translator tool as well as OpenTTD.
Javascript also gives you a much richer user experience and allows some things to be handled client side, again meaning quicker response time and lower requirements on our side and even on your side as your browser does not need to download, parse and draw an entirely new page.

Q: Why do you require Cookies?
A: Cookies are needed to store your 'session' data on the client side. This information is needed when you want to change strings. It also stores the location you were at so you can continue where you were, unless that string got removed ofcourse.

Q: How does the language file format work?
A: The workings of the language file are described at: http://wiki.openttd.org/FormatOfLangfiles

Q: Why am I not allowed to change all settings?
A: Some language settings are not changeable because they are essential for the language working correctly in OpenTTD. For example the name is important as it needs to be the English writing and in previous translator tools we have experienced that people often changed that to their own language too. The ISO code is used to determine what fonts can be used and must thus be written in a specific format that follows global standards and does not change ever. The winlangid is a number defined by Microsoft that is similar to the ISO code as it is also used to determine the language. Finally the grflangid is part of the NewGRF specifications allowing people to translate NewGRFs into your language.

Q: Where do I report bugs in the translator?
A: You report bugs at http://bugs.openttd.org/newtask/proj4 which is the bug repository for the "Website" project of OpenTTD's bug tracker. Please select "WT3" as category. You need to have an account for the bug tracker to report. Sadly enough we have not been able to integrate those accounts with the bananas and WT3 accounts, so you need to make an account there too. Alternatively you could send an email to translator@openttd.org.