ghostty/po/README_TRANSLATORS.md

Localizing Ghostty: The Translators' Guide

First of all, thanks for helping us localize Ghostty!

To begin contributing, please make sure that you have installed gettext on your system, which should be available under the gettext package for most Linux and macOS package managers.

You can install gettext on Windows in a few ways:

• Through an installer;
• Through package managers like Scoop (scoop install gettext) and WinGet (winget install gettext) which repackages the aforementioned installer;
• Through Unix-like environments like Cygwin and MSYS2.

Warning

Unlike what some tutorials suggest, we do not recommend installing gettext through GnuWin32, since it hasn't been updated since 2010 and very likely does not work on modern Windows versions.

You can verify that gettext has been successfully installed by running the command gettext -V. If everything went correctly, you should see an output like this:

$ gettext -V
gettext (GNU gettext-runtime) 0.21.1
Copyright (C) 1995-2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
Written by Ulrich Drepper.

With this, you're ready to localize!

Locale names

A locale name always consists of a two letter language code (e.g. de, es, fr). Sometimes, for languages that have regional variations (such as zh and es), the locale name includes a two letter country code. One example is es_AR for Spanish as spoken in Argentina.

Full locale names are more complicated, but Ghostty does not use all parts. The gettext documentation has more information on locale names.

Translation file names

All translation files lie in the po/ directory, including the main template file called com.mitchellh.ghostty.pot. Do not edit this file. The template is generated automatically from Ghostty's code and resources, and is intended to be regenerated by code contributors. If there is a problem with the template file, please reach out to a code contributor.

Translation file names consist of the locale name and the extension .po. For example: de.po, zh_CN.po.

Editing translation files

Note

If the translation file for your locale does not yet exist, see the "Creating new translation files" section of this document on how to create one.

The translation file contains a list of entries that look like this:

#. Translators: the category in the right-click context menu that contains split items for all directions
#: src/apprt/gtk/ui/1.0/menu-surface-context-menu.blp:38
#  译注：其他终端程序对 Split 皆有不同翻译，此处采取最直观的翻译方式
msgctxt "Context menu"
msgid "Split"
msgstr "分屏"

The msgid line contains the original string in English, and the msgstr line should contain the translation for your language. Occasionally there will also be a msgctxt line that differentiates strings that are identical in English, based on its context.

Lines beginning with # are comments, of which there are several kinds:

• Pay attention to comments beginning with #.. They are comments left by developers providing more context to the string.

• Comments that begin with #: are source comments: they link the string to source code or resource files. You normally don't need to consider these in your translations.

• You may also leave comments of your own to be read by other translators, beginning with # . These comments are specific to your locale and don't affect translators in other locales.

The first entry of the .po file has an empty msgid. This entry is special as it stores the metadata related to the .po file itself. You should update PO-Revision-Date and Last-Translator once you have finished your edits, but you normally do not need to modify other metadata.

Creating new translation files

You can use the msginit tool to create new translation files.

Run the command below, replacing X with your locale name.

$ msginit -i po/com.mitchellh.ghostty.pot -l X -o "po/X.po"

msginit may prompt you for other information such as your email address, which should be filled in accordingly. You can then add your translations within the newly created translation file.

Afterwards, you need to update the list of known locales within Ghostty's build system. To do so, open src/os/i18n_locales.zig and find the list of locale names after the comments, then add your locale name into the list.

The order matters, so make sure to place your locale name in the correct position. Read the comments present in the file for more details on the order. If you're unsure, place it at the end of the list.

const locales = [_][]const u8{
    "zh_CN",
    // <- Add your locale name here (probably)
}

You should then be able to run zig build run and see your translations in action! See the "Viewing translations" section below.

Before opening a pull request with the new translation file, you should also update the CODEOWNERS file. This is described in more detail in the "Localization teams" section—don't forget to read that section before submitting a pull request!

Viewing translations

Note

The localization system is not yet implemented for macOS, so it is not possible to view your translations there.

Simply run zig build run. Ghostty uses your system language by default; if your translations are of the language of your system, use zig build run -- --language=X (where X is your locale name). You can alternatively set the LANGUAGE environment variable to your locale name.

On some desktop environments, such as KDE Plasma, Ghostty uses server-side decorations by default. This hides many strings from the UI, which is undesirable when viewing your translations. You can force Ghostty to use client-side decorations with zig build run -- --window-decoration=client.

Some strings are present in multiple places! A notable example is the context menus: the hamburger menu in the header bar duplicates many strings present in the right click menu.

Localization teams

Every locale has a localization team consisting of the locale's maintainers. These maintainers review contributions to their locale's translations, and are responsible for translating new strings when requested: occasionally, all locale maintainers are pinged and requested to translate missing strings.

The primary purposes of being a locale maintainer are a declaration of commitment to their upkeep, and being informed of updates or update requests of the translations, via GitHub's review requests or @mentions.

So that future updates to a locale are possible, each localization team must have at least two members. If you are introducing a new language, please consider volunteering to be a part of the localization team, by mentioning that you are willing to be a part of it in the pull request description! You, and all reviewers, will be offered to join the locale team before the pull request to add the new language is merged, but this denotes your dedication upfront—for a pull request adding a new language to be merged, it needs at least one review from a speaker of that language and at least two localization team members. No one is required to join a localization team, even if they introduced support for the language.

CODEOWNERS

Localization teams are represented as teams in the Ghostty GitHub organization. GitHub reads a CODEOWNERS file, which maps files to teams, to identify relevant maintainers. When introducing support for a language, you should add the .po file to CODEOWNERS.

To do this, find the # Localization section near the bottom of the file, and add a line like so:

 # Localization
 /po/README_TRANSLATORS.md @ghostty-org/localization
 /po/com.mitchellh.ghostty.pot @ghostty-org/localization
 /po/zh_CN.po @ghostty-org/zh_CN
+/po/X.po @ghostty-org/yy_ZZ

X.po here is the name of the translation file you created. Unlike the translation file's name, localization team names always include a language and country code; yy here is the language code, and ZZ is the country code.

When adding a new entry, try to keep the list in alphabetical order if possible.

Style guide

These are general style guidelines for translations. Naturally, the specific recommended standards differ based on the specific language/locale, but these should serve as a baseline for the tone and voice of any translation.

• Prefer an instructive, yet professional tone.

  In languages that exhibit distinctions based on formality, prefer the formality that is expected of instructive material on the internet. The user should be considered an equal peer of the program and the translator, not an esteemed customer.

• Use simple to understand language and avoid jargon.

  Explain concepts that may be familiar in an English-speaking context, but are uncommon in your language.

• Do not overly literally translate foreign concepts to your language.

  Care should be taken so that your translations make sense to a reader without any background knowledge of the English source text. To localize is to transfer a concept between languages, not to translate each word at face value.

• Be consistent with stylistic and tonal choices.

  Consult the translations made by previous translators, and try to emulate them. Do not overwrite someone else's hard work without substantial justification.

• Make Ghostty fit in with surrounding applications.

  Follow existing translations for terms and concepts if possible, even when they are suboptimal. Follow the writing styles prescribed by the human interface guidelines of each platform Ghostty is available for, including the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines on Linux, and Apple's Human Interface Guidelines on macOS.

Common issues

Some mistakes are frequently made during translation. The most common ones are listed below.

Unicode ellipses

English source strings use the ellipses character, …, instead of three full stops, .... If your language uses ellipses, use the ellipses character instead of three full stops in your translations. You can copy this character from the English source string itself.

Title case

Title case is a feature of English writing where most words start with a capital letter: This Clause Is Written In Title Case. It is commonly found in titles, hence its name; however, English is one of the only languages that uses title case. If your language does not use title case, do not use title case for the sake of copying the English source. Please use the casing conventions of your language instead.

X-Generator field

Many .po file editors add an X-Generator field to the metadata section. These should be removed as other translators might overwrite them when using a different editor, and some (such as Poedit) update the line when a different version is used—this adds unnecessary changes to the diff.

You can remove the X-Generator field by simply deleting that line from the file with a plain text editor.

Updating metadata (revision date)

It is very easy to overlook the PO-Revision-Date field in the metadata at the top of the file. Please update this when you are done modifying the translations!

Depending on who last translated the file, the Last-Translator field might also need updating: make sure it has your name and email. Finally, if your name and email are not present in the copyright comment at the top of the file, consider adding it there.