Please help us translate Apostrophe 3 to your language!

[boutell]

Hello community members,

People ask us often how to contribute to Apostrophe as an open source project.

Right now one of the best ways to do that is by translating Apostrophe's user interface into new languages. And no programming is required. Here's how to get started.

If you are not a programmer

First, reach out to us to make sure someone else is not working on your language. The easiest way is to ask in the localization channel of our Discord. Or if you prefer, you can open a ticket in github.

Next, grab the English translation. The easiest way is to just go here, then copy and paste it all into a text editor such as Notepad (on Windows) or TextPad (on Macs). Programmers use other editors and those will work fine too. Using a word processor is not recommended.

What parts do I change?

For each phrase in the file, you'll see a key and a translation. Do not change the key. Just change the translation. For instance, if the phrase looks like this:

  "currentLocale": "Currently selected locale",

You should translate this part:

Currently selected locale

Be sure to keep the quotation marks and commas. if you need to use a quotation mark inside a translation, precede it with the \ character.

Special cases

Some phrases contain substitutions, like this:

  "assetTypeBuildComplete": "👍 {{ label }} is complete!",

Just make sure your translation still contains {{ label }} so that it can be substituted in with the real label by Apostrophe. You can change the order, though, placing text before {{ label }} for instance. Do not translate the word inside the brackets.

In a few cases, you might note things that look unfamiliar like dayjs format strings for dates and times:

  "dayjsTitleDateFormat": "ddd MMMM D [at] H:mma",

You can look these up on the dayjs site, but if you're not comfortable writing an appropriate format string for dayjs, it's OK. We'll find someone to help. Just concentrate on the parts you understand.

Sometimes dayjs format strings just say "apostrophe". This means there is a special, hand-written time formatter for English. But you can change "apostrophe" to a more appropriate dayjs format string for your locale.

Submitting your work

Finally, submit your work. The easiest way is to open a ticket in github. Then drag your new translation file in to create an attachment. Then just be sure to let us know what locale (what language) you're translating.

If you are a programmer

First: you should still reach out to us and make sure no one else is working on it. See above.

Then, if you prefer, you can git clone the apostrophe module, copy modules/@apostrophecms/i18n/i18n/en.json to create fr.json (substitute your own locale code), and create a pull request to submit your work. That'd be great if you have time. You can also test your translation in an actual project, if you're comfortable using npm link.

What about proofreading?

We'd be thrilled to have proofreaders for each translation. So if you volunteer and your language is spoken for already, there's a good chance we'll ask you to help review.

Thank you

Thank you for contributing to the Apostrophe localization effort!