Translating an external workbench

In the following notes, should be your addon's or workbench's name, for example,  or, or whatever. This context makes it so that all translation of your code will be gathered under the same name, to be more easily identified by translators. That is, they will know exactly to which addon or workbench a particular string belongs.

General

 * Add a folder. You can name it to something else, but this will be easier as it is the same throughout FreeCAD. In this folder, you will place the  files (the "source" translation files) and  files (compiled translation files).
 * Only the text that is shown to the user in the FreeCAD UI should be translated. Text that is only shown in the Python console should not be translated.
 * Text that prints to the is shown in the "Report view", and therefore should be translated. The "Report view" is different from the Python console.

In every Python .py file:

 * In every file where you need to translate text, you need a function defined. An easy way is to use the one from the Draft Workbench:

From FreeCAD 0.19, the FreeCAD module also defines a translate function, it's best to use that one:


 * All text that must be translated must be passed through the function.

becomes

This can be used anywhere: in, in , in Qt dialogs, etc. The functions do not automatically add the newline character , so this must be added at the end if desired. This character doesn't need translation either, so it can be outside the translating function:


 * If you are using files made with QtDesigner, nothing special needs to be done with them.
 * When creating new objects, do not translate the object's "Name". Rather, translate object's "Label". The difference is that a "Name" is unique; it stays the same throughout the life of the object; on the other hand, a "Label" can be changed by the user as desired.
 * When creating properties for your objects, don’t translate the property name. But place the description inside :

Don't use your own in this specific case. Keep.
 * Do not translate the text of document transactions made with

In InitGui.py:

 * Add the following line, close to the top of the file:


 * To translate menu names:


 * The macro doesn’t do anything, but it marks texts to be picked up by the  utility later on. Since it doesn't actually do anything, we only use it in special cases where FreeCAD itself takes care of everything.
 * Add the path to your folder in the Initialized function:

The file has no file attribute, so it is not easy to find the translations folder’s relative location. An easy way to work around this is to make it import another file from the same folder, and in that file, do

Inside each FreeCAD command class:

 * Add the following line, close to the top of the file:


 * Translate the and  of the command like this:

where is the name of the command, defined by

Gather all the strings from your module

 * You will need the, , and  tools installed on your system. In Linux distributions they usually come in packages named  or . On some systems  is named  or  or  or similar. Same for the other tools. You may use the Qt4 or Qt5 version at your choice.
 * If you have files, you need to run  first:

This is recursive and will find files inside all your directory structure
 * If you have files, you need to run  too:


 * If you ran both operations, you now need to unify these two files into one:


 * Check the contents of the three files to make sure that they contain the strings, then you can delete both  and.
 * You can do it all in one bash script like this:

Send the .ts file to a translation platform
It is time to have your file translated. You can choose to set up an account on a public translation platform such as Crowdin or Transifex, or you can benefit from our existing FreeCAD account at Crowdin, which has many users already, and therefore more chance to have your file translated quickly and by people who know FreeCAD.

If you wish to host your file on the FreeCAD Crowdin account, get in touch with Yorik on the FreeCAD forum.

some platforms like Crowdin can integrate with GitHub and do all the process from points 2, 3 and 4 automatically. For that, you can’t use the FreeCAD Crowdin account; you will need to set up your own account.

Merge the translations
Once your file has been translated, even if partially, you can download the translations from the site:


 * You will usually download a file containing one  per language
 * Place all the translated files, together with your base  file, in the  folder

Compile the translations
Now run the program on each file that you have.

You can automate the process

You should find one file for each translated  file. The files is what will be used by Qt and FreeCAD at runtime.

That's all you need. Note that certain parts of your workbench cannot be translated on-the-fly if you decide to switch languages. If this is the case, you will need to restart FreeCAD for the new language to take effect.

Important references

 * Why and how to translate functions (forum thread)

Related Pages

 * External Workbenches
 * Localisation
 * For more informations make your requests here Translating external workbenches