The *.tab files are in a fairly straightforward format. Lines starting with a '#' character are ignored, other lines must be in the following format:
<pagename> TAB <category> TAB <data>
Please be careful to use TAB and not SPACE.
The <data> field can use variables in the form $1, $2, etc. These variables are defined by the script and there's no simple way of knowing what they are apart from looking at the script itself. To find out exactly what these variables are filled out with, search for the getText('<pagename>','<category'>)
string in the scripts contained in the www/
and common/
. This is not always easy to do.
Your best bet is to guess the meaning of the $1, $2, etc. variables from the non-customized text (either Base.tab or Foobaric.tab if it is defined).
*.tab files must be UTF-8 encoded.