Translate the interface

The cockpit, the menu bar, notifications and the terminal client show the profile’s texts in one language. The command line and --help stay in English.

Pick the language

By default the daemon follows the system’s preferred languages (macOS’s language list, else LANGUAGE, LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES or LANG) and picks the nearest language the profile holds texts in: pt-PT reads the pt-BR texts, and a language no layer translates reads English. To choose, set it in config.toml:

[ui]
locale = "pt-BR"

The change applies without a restart. A language the profile holds no texts in, such as fr, shows English texts and still writes dates and numbers the French way.

Correct a translation

A translation is a file of a layer under locales/<tag>/, mirroring the file it translates, with only the texts. To change one text, write it in your profile’s mirror:

# <profile>/locales/pt-BR/actions.toml
[pause]
label = "Segurar"

A plugin’s texts live in its layer’s ui.toml; your translation of them goes in <profile>/plugins/<id>/locales/<tag>/ui.toml. Run wloop profile check to see the problems: a key that names no text, a typo such as pause.lable, or a translation that uses a field its English text does not.

Rewrite a text

A text you rewrite in the file itself (<profile>/actions.toml, label = "Hold") reads as you wrote it in every language, since a translation of the old text no longer fits it. Add your own translation beside it in locales/<tag>/ to read it in another language too. A copied file that keeps a text as the bundled one has it still reads the bundled translation.

Add a language

Create <profile>/locales/<tag>/ with a BCP 47 tag, such as es or de-AT, and mirror the files you translate: actions.toml, views.toml, tasks.toml, gates.toml, keys.toml, notices.toml, strings.toml, each workflow’s workflow.toml and text.md.tmpl, and each intent’s intent.toml. Every text you leave out shows in English. The language reference marks each key that is a text with “localized”.

Where a count meets a noun, write the plural with plural, whose forms follow the language’s rules (one, other, and zero, two, few or many where the language has them):

questions_title = "{{.n}} {{plural .n \"one\" \"pergunta aberta\" \"other\" \"perguntas abertas\"}}"