Translation

Nextcloud's translation system is powered by Transifex. To start translating sign up and enter a group. If your community app should be translated by the Nextcloud community on Transifex just follow the setup section below.

Translation tool

The translation tool scrapes the source code for method calls to t() or n() to extract the strings that should be translated. If you check in minified JS code for example then those method names are also quite common and could cause wrong extractions. For this reason we allow to specify a list of files that the translation tool will not scrape for strings. You simply need to add a file named :file:`.l10nignore` into the root folder of your app and specify the files one per line:

# compiled vue templates
js/bruteforcesettings.js

Setup of the transifex sync

Transifex configuration .tx/config

To setup the transifex sync within the Nextcloud community you need to add first the transifex config to your app folder at :file:`.tx/config` (please replace MYAPP with your apps id):

[main]
host     = https://www.transifex.com
lang_map = hu_HU: hu, nb_NO: nb, sk_SK: sk, th_TH: th, ja_JP: ja, bg_BG: bg, cs_CZ: cs, fi_FI: fi

[o:nextcloud:p:nextcloud:r:{{APPID}}]
file_filter = translationfiles/<lang>/{{APPID}}.po
source_file = translationfiles/templates/{{APPID}}.pot
source_lang = en
type        = PO

Then create a folder :file:`l10n` and a file :file:`l10n/.gitkeep` to create an empty folder which later holds the translations.

Branch selection .tx/backport

The bot will run every night and only push commits to the following branches once there is an update to the translation:

  • main

  • master

  • stableX (X being the recent 3 versions of Nextcloud Server)

You can overwrite this list by creating a file .tx/backport in your repository with the following content:

develop stable

That would sync the translations for the branches (main and master are added automatically):

  • main

  • master

  • develop

  • stable

Excluding files .l10nignore

Add one more file called :file:`.l10nignore` in root of the repository and the files and folders to ignore for translations. This should be used to exclude files that create false-positive translations, such as:

  • Compiled JavaScript files js/

  • 3rd-party PHP dependencies vendor/

  • Non-shipped files and documentation docs/

Validate source strings

After finishing the setup, you can validate the translation source strings which outlines some common mistakes. Clone the nextcloud/docker-ci repository and afterwards run the following script:

bash translations/validateSyncSetup.sh Owner Repository

Repository permissions

Now the GitHub account @nextcloud-bot needs to get write access to your repository. You can invite it from your repository settings:

https://github.com/<user-name>/<repo-name>/settings/access

After sending the invitation, please open a ticket using the "Request translations" template.

If you need help just open a ticket with the request and we can also guide you through the steps.

Manual translation

If Transifex is not the right choice or the app is not accepted for translation, generate the gettext strings by yourself by executing our translation tool in the app folder:

cd /srv/http/nextcloud/apps/myapp
translationtool.phar create-pot-files

The translation tool requires gettext, installable via:

apt-get install gettext

The above tool generates a template that can be used to translate all strings of an app. This template is located in the folder :file:`translationfiles/template/` with the name :file:`myapp.pot`. It can be used by your favored translation tool such as Poedit. It then creates a :file:`.po` file. The :file:`.po` file needs to be placed in a folder named like the language code with the app name as filename - for example :file:`translationfiles/es/myapp.po`. After this step the tool needs to be invoked to transfer the po file into our own fileformat that is more easily readable by the server code:

translationtool.phar convert-po-files

Now the following folder structure is available:

myapp/l10n
|-- es.js
|-- es.json
myapp/translationfiles
|-- es
|   |-- myapp.po
|-- templates
    |-- myapp.pot

You then just need the :file:`.json` and :file:`.js` files for a working localized app.

Documentation on the translation process

The following describes four processes:

  1. Process to translate new string

Process to translate new string

  1. Process to correct typo/grammar issue in translated string

Process to correct typo/grammar issue in translated string

  1. Process for making an untranslatable string translatable

Process for making an untranslatable string translatable

  1. Process to correct issue in source string

Process to correct issue in source string