i18n

Internationalization (i18n)

Use translation function

Translations in JavaScript

Wrap translatable strings with _() e.g. _('string to translate') and the i18n-scan.pl and friends will correctly identify these strings as they do with all the existing translations.

If you have multi line strings you can split them with concatenation:

var mystr = _('this string will translate ' +
	'correctly even though it is ' +
	'a multi line string!);

You may also use line continuations \ syntax:

var mystr = _('this string will translate \
	correctly even though it is \
	a multi line string');

Usually if you have multiple sentences you may with to use a line break and you need to use the `
HTML tag:

var mystr = _('Port number.<br />' +
	'E.g. 80 for HTTP');

To simplify a job for translators it may be better to split into separate keys without the `
:

var mystr = _('Port number.') + <br />' +
	_('E.g. 80 for HTTP');

If you have links in then try to move attributes out of a translation key like:

var mystr = _('For further information <a %s>check the wiki</a>')
	.format('href="https://openwrt.org/docs/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer"')

This will generate a full link with HTML For further information <a href="https://openwrt.org/docs/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">check the wiki</a>. The noreferrer is important when making a link that is opened in a new tab (target="_blank").

Translations in LuCI lua+html templates

Use the <%: text to translate %> as documented on Templates

Translations in Lua controller code and Lua CBIs

As hinted at in the Templates doc, %: is actually invoking a translate() function. In most controller contexts, this is already available for you, but if necessary, is available for include in luci.i18n.translate

Translation files

Translations are saved in the folder po/ within each individual LuCI component directory, e.g. applications/luci-app-firewall/po/. You find the reference in po/templates/<package>.pot. The actual translation files can be found at po/[lang]/[package].po.

In order to use the commands below you need to have the gettext utilities (msgcat, msgfmt, msgmerge) installed on your system. On Debian/Ubuntu you can install with sudo apt install gettext.

Rebuild po files

If you want to rebuild the translations after you made changes to a package this is an easy way:

./build/i18n-scan.pl applications/[application] > applications/[application]/po/templates/[application_basename].pot
./build/i18n-update.pl applications/[application]/po

Example:

./build/i18n-scan.pl applications/luci-app-firewall > applications/luci-app-firewall/po/templates/firewall.pot
./build/i18n-update.pl applications/luci-app-firewall/po

note that the directory argument can be omitted for i18n-update.pl to update all apps.

Some packages share translation files, in this case you need to scan through all their folders. The first command from above should then be:

./build/i18n-scan.pl applications/[package-1] applications/[package-2] applications/[package-n] > [location of shared template]/[application].pot

Note: The translation catalog for the base system covers multiple components, use the following commands to update it:

./build/mkbasepot.sh
./build/i18n-update.pl

LMO files

The *.po files are big so Luci needs them in a compact compiled LMO format. Luci reads *.lmo translations from /usr/lib/lua/luci/i18n/ folder. E.g. luci-app-acl has a Arabic translation in luci-i18n-acl-ar package that installs /usr/lib/lua/luci/i18n/acl.ar.lmo file.

In order to quickly convert a single .po file to .lmo file for testing on the target system use the po2lmo utility. You will need to compile it from the luci-base module:

 $ cd modules/luci-base/src/
 $ make po2lmo
 $ ./po2lmo
 Usage: ./po2lmo input.po output.lmo

Now you can compile and upload translation:

 ./po2lmo ../../../applications/luci-app-acl/po/ar/acl.po ./acl.ar.lmo
 scp ./acl.ar.lmo [email protected]:/usr/lib/lua/luci/i18n/

You can change language in System /Language and Style and check the translation.